


A Trap Of Their Own Creation

by deceptivemirror



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 11:56:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 56,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1778164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deceptivemirror/pseuds/deceptivemirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While traveling the country in search of monsters to hunt, Dean and Sam look just like any other set of siblings. Driving through the Arizona desert in the Impala, eating food in hotel rooms (antacids optional), and getting caught in traffic are all part of the Winchester package deal. The issues of cohabitation are also nothing new, what with Sam's hair trigger and inability to sleep unarmed, Dean's categorical refusal to give Sam driving time, and the inevitable person who is convinced they are a couple.</p><p>However, waking up in an unfamiliar room on psychiatrist's couches in their pajamas is something new, especially when they have no idea how they got there. </p><p>This is the story of how a brotherly relationship can go sour without a single word spoken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Prologue: Present**

_“Cause even though you left me here,_  
I have nothing left to fear.  
There are only walls that hold me here...”  
Civil Twilight, “Letters From The Sky”

For once, Dean Winchester didn't wake up feeling like he'd twisted himself into a pretzel.

His head was bothering him, true, but considering the number of beer bottles and shots he had imbibed last night, he had earned the resulting agony. Other than that annoyingly familiar pain, he was sprawled out comfortably, which was different from any of his typical mornings. It was often difficult for him to find a comfortable sleeping position in the crap-tacular hotels he and Sam made use of, and even more difficult when they had to squat somewhere and all the bedding to be had was a bedroll, barely an inch thick (or more, but time and his body had flattened it) between his back and the ground.

Dean didn't want to think he was getting too old for this kind of life, but sometimes, life caught up with him just for the playful reminder that no, he wasn't going to be a twenty-something forever, he couldn't stay up all night drinking with college co-eds with more liver than sense, and no matter what he did, cramming a strapping, over six-foot tall body on a hotel mattress made to accommodate someone a lot shorter than him was never going to feel pleasant. Considering his baby brother was taller than him, Dean decided he'd be grateful for small favors. With some creative positioning, at least _his_ body could be made to fit the average bed.

Hangover aside, Dean hadn't felt this comfortable in a long time, and he decided that milking the situation for all that it was worth wouldn't be a bad plan.

Sighing in what almost felt like contentment, he scratched his stomach, then stilled at the rustle of leather he heard during the movement. He didn't remember much of last night, but he didn't often fall asleep in his jacket like this. He frowned without opening his eyes. Leather didn't wrinkle the same way his normal cotton shirt and flannel over-shirts did, but he didn't feel like stretching his favorite jacket out of shape was a good way to start the day either, unaccustomed absence of an aching body notwithstanding.

If he was thinking words like “unaccustomed” and “notwithstanding,” it was a sure sign that he'd either slept too long, or Sam's weirdly educated way of talking was creeping in and taking him over. The thought made him shudder and finally open his eyes.

This...was definitely not the hotel room he and Sam had rented.

Chintzy floral ceiling-and-wallpaper had been replaced by sturdy-looking wood beams and soft cream-painted walls. Small pictures of woodland areas and framed pieces of paper were hung in a mathematically precise staggered pattern along the wall facing Dean, but were slightly too far away for him to catch details. The room smelled faintly of fresh air with hints of spice, which was a far cry from the embedded smell of cigarette smoke, must and mold of the hotels he and Sam had been in over the years.

If Dean could figure out where the ever-loving fuck he was, he thought he might actually enjoy the change of scenery, accommodation-wise. First, though, he wanted to take a look at the only bed that had given him a good night's sleep since before he'd hit his growth spurt. If it was convenient, he'd either try to steal it or buy it. Good things were hard to come by these days, and there would be bonus points if he could figure out a way to fit it into the Impala's already overstuffed trunk.

He turned onto his side, still weirdly calm and cozy despite waking up somewhere totally unfamiliar, and got a good look at the bed he was sleeping on. Even through his admittedly boozed-up brain, a few things got through. One, he wasn't wearing his leather jacket like he thought he was; taking a look down his body made him realize he was in a plain black t-shirt and red flannel pants. Second, the strangely awesome bed he was on wasn't a bed at all.

It was a psychiatrist's couch.

Feeling slightly freaked out, Dean carefully turned over onto his other side and saw Sam, dressed in his own blue t-shirt and flannel pajama pants, sprawled out on another dark leather armless couch, mouth open and sleeping akimbo. Despite the increasing oddness of the situation, Dean couldn't help but smile at the sight. Neither of them really talked about it, but Dean knew what baggy eyes, increased coffee intake and lack of focus meant on anyone, and Sam wasn't nearly subtle enough to hide from him. As of late, _he'd_ been having an easier time sneaking the same symptoms past _Sam_ who, even tired, was an observant bastard. Seeing him sleeping like how he'd slept as a kid made Dean feel simultaneously happy that he was finally sleeping, and weird because he'd stopped sleeping like that the night Dean had told him about their lives--

\--Dean squelched that thought and where it led with the ease of long practice.

The wall beyond Sam was more of the same. Cream colored walls that had various pictures and framed pieces of paper that weren't pictures, but unless Dean could somehow bring himself to leave the rare comfort he felt like he was wallowing in, he wouldn't know what was in the frames.

Somehow, he didn't feel like it. He wanted to stay sprawled out, not feeling the twinge in his back from sleeping curled up, not aching from a night spent lying on a side instead of his back, and not trying to stretch out the kink in his neck that, without fail, took at least ten minutes to work out every single morning since he'd become an adult. He wanted to keep watching Sam sleep like this, innocent and without fear, peaceful in a way that he hadn't been in too long since Jess and Dad--

Dean again silenced the thought before it could drag up the resulting images. He didn't know how or why, but it still hurt nearly as much as the days when they both--

Dean tried, but this time the images wouldn't be denied.

_Fire burning, raging out of control, holding onto Sammy who was bigger than him and snake-slippery, screaming that it was too late; Sammy crying and struggling and hurting him trying to get to a woman who was already dead--_

_\--Dad lying on the hospital floor, dead from a gunshot wound from the Colt that killed fucking everything, smiling like he hadn't a care in the world; hated vile final words whispering in his ear; might have to kill your baby brother, boy, watch him, watch out for Sammy--_

Dean sniffed a bit, then wiped at his eyes. Fucking hangover pain was so bad it was making him leak tears.

Fine, so Sam was sleeping like he didn't have a care in the world for once? Didn't mean they didn't _have_ cares in the world. They'd probably get back to them soon enough, so why not let Sam sleep until he woke up naturally? Dean refused to acknowledge the fact that he was staring at his baby brother's face, branding the rare look of peace in his mind to make up for the total lack of cameras, phones or other recording materials in this strange room.

Quietly, he stood up, relieved to see that he hadn't been tied up in any way, even if the hangover made him want to get horizontal again almost immediately. He pressed the bases of both hands to his forehead, willing the throbbing to stop by applying pressure of his own. It never worked, but it was something to do until the urge to lie down and vomit passed.

There were days Dean wondered why he bothered to drink when he _knew_ this would be the end result.

Finally, the nausea and some of the pain passed enough for him to think clearly again. Dean was pretty sure that was a good thing. There wasn't anything resembling a sink, a potted plant or a toilet in this case, so vomiting into anything other than a corner of the room probably wasn't an option. Sam probably wouldn't have enjoyed waking up to the sound of him puking anyway.

Dean scoffed a bit at the thought. Not like listening to him hurling was a new thing for Sam anyway. Dean had been woken up by their dad and Sam doing it more than once in his life.

Slowly, he shuffled his feet over to the wall beyond Sam, doing his best to make normal noises. Dean still had a scar across his otherwise unmarked right bicep from the throwing knife Sam kept under his pillow that had convinced him moving stealthily, at least when Sam was asleep in the same room, was a bad idea, so he didn't even bother trying. Regular human sounds were what kept Sam sleeping soundly without attacking anything before he was fully awake. Abnormal sounds had him hurling sharp objects first and asking questions later.

Dean, upon arriving close enough to see the wall, wondered what his curiosity was thinking. There wasn't anything really interesting to look at, and nothing that had useful information. The pictures were of many different owls and woodland scenes, though Dean couldn't remember anything outside of Purgatory looking anything near as wild and lush as some of what he was seeing. One featured a glen with a waterfall, with the water so clear Dean could easily see fish frolicking. Some of the fish had an eerie glow about them, but Dean confirmed that they probably weren't eerie in a supernatural sense. It was really odd, seeing something glittering in what was very clearly a photograph. The fish didn't seem _that_ brightly colored. The framed papers seemed to have archaic battle plans and strategies mapped out on them, and the only point of real interest was that the paper looked really really old. Dean supposed that was why it was framed; to protect it from disintegrating any further than it already had.

A soft sound from behind him had Dean whirling around, ready to fight, but it was only Sam squinting a bit at the light coming in from...come to think of it, where was the light coming from? Dean only knew that it was bright enough to cause him pain if he moved too fast.

Sam's sleeping habits were a maze Dean negotiated on a day-to-day basis. Back when he had had the freaky demon powers, he had often started awake with his hand close to a knife. When he was a kid, he didn't sleep unless someone was near enough to touch. Waking from nightmares and hallucinations from Hell had him screaming or sitting up with a _gun_ in his hand instead of a knife, and Dean vividly remembered having to talk him down from shooting wildly several times, because the first thing Sam _always_ did when a gun was in his hand was remove the safety, no matter what the situation. Since Dean could barely remember the last time Sam had awoken from sleep peacefully, let alone without a weapon, he was now in new territory.

He saw Sam blink blearily, then squint his eyes shut. Dean couldn't resist a smirk, even if it felt like his face would crack and fall off. Guess the light was too bright for Sam's post-hangover eyes too.

“Ugh,” Sam groaned. “What freaking died in my mouth?”

“Considering the rocket fuel in those shots, probably your tongue,” Dean husked out, surprised at the harshness of his voice.

“God, Dean, lower the volume,” Sam whined, the shrill tone going straight to Dean's brain.

“You first,” Dean grumbled, slumping to a seat against the wall he had been inspecting.

The pain slowly melted away enough for Dean to think, and by that time, Sam seemed to have regained enough mental ability to sit up without throwing up or groaning. Dean had the oddest thought that, if he could see his boys now, Dad would just be _so_ proud of them. Really, no father could possibly be happier about his boys being essentially kidnapped, put into a room and waking up with horrible hangovers.

Dean shook his head, took a moment to regret doing it, then took another few to clutch his stomach and focus on the non-moving floor. One breath, gag, hold it in, exhale, another deep breath, exhale again. Nausea once again under control, he looked back up to find Sammy sitting up with his head between his knees, looking very much like a long-haired pretzel. Dean resisted the urge to shake his head again; no point in undoing the hard work of a few moments ago.

“Where are we?” Sam mumbled from between his own legs.

“Dunno, but it looks like we're in some weirdo shrink's office,” Dean offered, also speaking in a lower tone of voice.

“Don't 'member leaving the hotel,” Sam slurred, head still tucked between his thighs. If not for the sheer strangeness of the situation, Dean might have made an off-color comment about how most men would kill for Sam's flexibility.

Maybe later.

“Don't think we did,” Dean muttered, slumping down the wall to sit against it. “We were drinking with all those rowdy college bastards last night after we ganked the succubus--” Dean fell silent. The succubus had been nearly a week ago. That didn't seem right. “Never mind. That wasn't last night.”

“We were in Portland, right?” Sam asked. Dean looked up--apparently he had been staring at his own knees--and found that Sam had taken his out from between his own. “Portland, Oregon?”

“I think so, yeah,” Dean replied, leaning his head back slowly to keep the room-tilting from getting too extreme. “Was nice to be back.”

Sam was silent for a moment, then spoke again. “Was nice to remember it,” he said softly, turning to face Dean. “Then again, it does seem really different from the last time we were there. All the street names had cardinal directions in them, for one thing. Could have sworn the street names were weirder too.”

“And everyone looked scared when it snowed just _one_ inch,” Dean chuckled, regretting it the moment the mirth left his mouth. He squinted his eyes shut.

“That and I was half-dead from no sleep when Lucifer....” Sam trailed off.

Dean let him. There wasn't much to do _but_ let him trail off. Even now, Sam remembering being Lucifer’s bitch brought on epic flashbacks. Epic for anyone in the same room, anyway. Dean had had enough of being strangled for several lifetimes, let alone the one he had going.

“Anyway, it seemed different,” Sam said, picking up the conversation once more. “At least it wasn't as cold.”

“I don't even know if we're _still_ in Oregon, Sammy,” Dean sighed, opening his eyes again. Sam was looking at him somberly. “Hell, I don't even know what happened after we started drinking!”

“God sakes, Dean, pick a theory,” Sam huffed out, laughing a little, then wincing. “That's all we've been doing lately anyway.”

“Probably wasn't important anyway,” Dean agreed. He looked around the room a little bit, and felt himself double-take. “So, I just realized that this room doesn't have a door.”

For once, Sam didn't throw a grimace at him and search the walls for himself. He just sighed. “I can't say I didn't expect this.”

“Me either,” Dean admitted.

Dean's life hadn't taught him to expect anything out of luck (whether she was a lady or not) or fortunate circumstances (which generally sucked), so as he stood back up with a groan for his aching head and dry mouth, he nearly missed the small table on the other side of the couch he had been sleeping on. He stared at it, wondered how he missed it the first time, then shrugged. “Well, looks like we got something to take the pain away.”

“Yeah?” Sam said, almost sounding like himself at the thought.

“Yeah,” Dean replied, sitting back down on the shrink's couch. He had to suppress the urge to lie back down and just wallow in the comfort. “Got some water bottles here, and some tylenol.”

“Toss 'em,” Sam said, making grabby hands.

Dean did, but not before swallowing two pills dry and chasing them with half a bottle of water. Hearing Sam practically destroying the water bottle and the pills in an effort to get them down his throat made him hastily suppress a smile, and almost forget the strangeness of the situation.

Almost.

Dean admitted that, when he had first woken up in the room, he had been pretty out of it. His head hurt, the rest of his body had been unexpectedly _without_ pain (and that was rare, except for when they found hotels with massaging beds), and his first instinct had been, naturally, to check on Sam. Missing the small bedside table would have been easy with all those distractions going on, but Dean tried to be a little more aware of things than he let on. He flat-out _hadn't_ noticed the bedside table, but did it mean that the table, the water, and the pills had appeared when he had thought about something to drink and kill the pain, or had it been there all along?

Sometimes, just sometimes, Dean wished he could be _normal_ so he didn't look potentially supernatural gift horses in the mouth. Or look something a lot scarier in the mouth. Like a clown (he would never admit it, but he shared Sam's dislike of the damn things). Or that guy in a bar several towns back who had been eyeing his ass like it was a double bacon cheeseburger. Idly, he wondered if Sam had forgiven him for grabbing his ass and hauling them outside like that. At the time, it had seemed the lesser of two evils, and the black eye _had_ healed up in two weeks.

“Sam,” he said hesitantly, eyeing the water bottle like it was a snake and trying to ignore the little voice in his head that had _too late, too late_ going on repeat. “Did you see the table here when you woke up?”

Sam, busily draining the water bottle, didn't reply for a long second, then slowly, he swallowed one last time and put it down on the floor. “No,” he said, the first faint signs of panic showing on his face. “I didn't. Crap, do you think we just--”

“I hope not,” Dean interrupted. “I guess we can keep an eye on each other, see if there's going to be side effects. _God,_ I hope there aren't any damn side effects.”

Sam didn't reply, but stood up and began his own examination of the room. Not for the first time, Dean marveled at how large his little brother had become, compared to how short he had been as a kid. Years of being around him or no, it was hard to ignore the way any room Sammy entered somehow _shrank_ in comparison to the sheer size and bulk of his body. Not that Dean considered himself petite or anything, but people rarely came super-sized like Sam. Also not for the first time, he wondered how people automatically saw _him_ as the more threatening of the two of them. Probably had to do with the fact that the first thing he did do upon meeting someone was threaten them.

Maybe he should work on that. Dean considered it for a few seconds, then shrugged. Probably not. If people thought he was going soft on them, threatening pain wouldn't get them information they needed.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam asked from across the room. Dean noticed that his head didn't throb when he heard Sam's normal speaking volume. Maybe the meds weren't bad stuff after all.

“Yeah?”

“There's all sorts of sigils imbedded in the walls here,” Sam said, sounding excited. He was still absently rubbing a temple as he spoke, proof that he was still in some pain, but Dean knew that nothing stopped Sam from following one thought to the next, save unexpected blows to the head.

“What kind?” Dean asked, intrigued.

“There's the Enochian keep-aways for angels, demon-traps, I think a few here in what might be Arabic that keep djinn away, and a few others I've never seen before.”

“And why are you able to see them?”

“They're camouflaged into the walls,” Sam replied, tracing over what Dean eventually recognized as one against angelic eavesdropping. “I had to practically stick my nose up against the wall to even make them out, but damn, whoever or _whatever_ put us in here didn't want anyone to find us.”

“Or get out if they did,” Dean said, impressed despite himself. Then...”Wait. _Anti-angel sigils?_ That means--”

“--Cas can't find us,” Sam finished, looking downcast. “Dammit.”

“Not like he could find us before without one of us calling him on a phone first,” Dean pointed out, wishing for once that he was wrong. “Those Enochian wards he put on our ribs are still going strong. Angels can't find us unless we put out the word.”

Sam looked green again, and this time Dean doubted it was from the hangover. “So, we're in a room somewhere in Creation with all sorts of protection and anti-demon stuff plastered all over it, and the only person who knows how or why we're here is not only the one who did all this, but probably also the one who put us here?”

Sometimes, Dean wished Sam wasn't as smart as he was.

“Looks like. But hey, at least there's water in here.”

He got a dirty look in return.


	2. Five Days Prior

**Chapter One: Five Days Prior**

_“Road trippin' with my two favorite allies,  
Fully loaded, we got snacks and supplies.  
It's time to leave this town  
It's time to steal away,  
Let's go get lost  
Anywhere in the USA.  
Let's go get lost,  
Let's go get lost...”_  
Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Road Trippin”

Sam sometimes hated the fact that he was essentially raised in a car.

He knew it could have easily been much worse. The Impala was one of the few vehicles on the road today that could comfortably house someone of his dad's height (and later, Dean's, and finally, after too goddamn long, Sam himself), was small enough to not gather too much notice, and was big enough to protect them in case of an accident, demon interference, chasing down a Horseman, or other things the family Winchester had been made to deal with at some point in their lives. In a pinch, someone could lay down and almost be comfortable in the back seat, the aforementioned back seat could fold down so people could stretch out and maneuver (something he was sure the entire family had done at some point, thankfully _not_ at the same time), and the front seat had enough leg-room to keep Sam from developing cramps in his thighs and calves.

The Impala was not the worst home Sam could have had. Some of the memories of hotels past and present were enough to make him shudder. Hardened hunter though he was, impervious to bodily fluids, slime, or ectoplasm, seeing the remains of an army of cockroaches underneath the mattress of that one hotel in Nevada however many years ago (part of Sam's brain figured _not fucking long enough ago_ ) still gave Sam the creeps. The idea of living somewhere perpetually _that_ gross made him grateful that the car never picked up crap for long; sooner or later, Dad (or later, Dean) insisted they give the Impala a bi-weekly clean-through, and except in times of extreme hardship, they had stuck to that schedule. Sam definitely thought that keeping the car clean was easier than doing the same with a home.

However, being perpetually on the move made certain biological necessities difficult. When he was a kid, Sam had found it difficult to sleep unless either Dad or Dean was near enough to touch, since most of his early childhood had had them both practically at his elbow (and later, at his neck and on his ass, but that was because close quarters sucked for three men with tempers). When he got old enough to be able to sleep without someone nearby, he discovered that sleeping well was nearly impossible unless he could hear cars or feel wheels spinning under him. After learning about the stuff that Dad and Dean hunted, well...he got the feeling Jess had never really bought into his excuse of “childhood robbery trauma” as a reason to keep both a gun and a knife near the bed while he slept, but she had been gracious enough to let it go anyway.

One reason was that, except for the singing along to the radio or the tapes Dean was constantly playing (Sam felt sure that, sooner or later, he'd reconcile Dean to the necessity of upgrading the stereo system), discussing cases and some random conversation, a lot of the time spent in the car while either Dean or Sam drove (Sam more rarely because Dean was a possessive bastard when it came to the Impala) was nearly silent. The silence was often companionable unless they had been discussing Things We Don't Talk About, which was always capitalized in Sam's head because of the increasing length of that particular list. Sam really hated that list. Sooner or later, he wanted to salt and burn that list. Flamethrowers surely counted as sufficient fire.

The second reason was the inconvenience of finding rest stops. Depending on the urgency required in getting to the next city on the map to stop who-knows-what from doing hunters-know-what, sometimes, they kept empty bottles in the car specifically for the purpose of peeing into them, so they wouldn't have to stop. It was _embarrassing,_ especially when they had the bad luck to pass either SUVs or semi-trucks. The height of those vehicles made it pathetically easy for people to see into the car, and more than half the time, both Sam and Dean forgot to drape a blanket over their laps to hide what they were doing, like how breastfeeding mothers did when they were in public.

Sam _particularly_ remembered a Suburban with five children and two adults, whose shouts of “cover your eyes, children!” still scorched his ears. He was a big enough man to admit that dropping the filled bottle out of the window after Dean had realized what was going on and passed the other vehicle was both completely juvenile and totally worth it. Dean had even slapped him on the arm in approval that day.

The third and probably final reason was that, unless Dean was incapacitated in some way, Sam nearly never got to drive. The times when Dean was in Hell, or Purgatory, or otherwise Away (which _also_ always got capitalized in his mind, probably due to Dean's always going somewhere that _required_ emphatic punctuation) were the only times Sam got in his driving practice. Considering the scarcity of Dean being injured too badly to drive (Sam _swore_ his brother had built up callouses on his back from all the getting thrown into walls, and an immune system of steel to back it up), away from the Impala (usually involving his or someone else's untimely death), or even too sleepy (which he counteracted with coffee and energy drinks) to be safe behind the wheel, Sam was surprised he'd even managed to sit in the driver's seat, let alone turn the ignition key.

Sam was used to the lack of privacy. He might even have gotten used to the silence, but there wasn't many ways he could keep from getting bored on the road, aside from going over case files preparatory to their upcoming hunt, if there was even an upcoming hunt. He had a small stash of classic paperbacks too, but he'd already read them all at least ten times; the only reason he'd kept them was because he knew Dean liked to read them before he went to bed. Next used bookstore he saw, he was loading up. The last dinky town they had been in, Gila Bend (somewhere in Arizona, which they were in the process of leaving), hadn't even had a bookstore, unless a gas station that had some popular romance novels counted.

Sam's love life might be non-existent, but he wasn't quite bodice-ripper desperate yet.

He got out the map and checked it against a road marker they had just passed. The Impala's air conditioning unit, unlike the rest of the car, was modern; Dean had insisted on upgrading it after getting stuck in Nevada for a week when it had conked out. The part of Arizona they were traveling through now was known for its rather spectacular temperatures during the summer months, and the original air conditioner the Impala had had wouldn't have been able to deal with keeping both Sam and Dean from sweating their brains out. The new system was proving to be worth its weight in gold after spending a week in Gila Bend (“home to 1700 friendly people and 5 old crabs,” his memory helpfully provided), the oh-so-scenic Knights Inn, and finally tracking down and ganking a succubus. The kindest thing he could say about their hotel room was that at least it lacked the garish decor of some of the other shitholes they had seen over the years. The a/c also hadn't done much to cool the room, instead adding a strange fever chill to the air that had almost made Sam _glad_ to step outside and roast.

“We're about 40 miles out of Yuma, which is where we can hop from the I-8 West over to the I-5 North,” he murmured to Dean, who was humming absently to himself.

“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean replied. “What's the time?”

“About 2ish,” Sam said after livening his cell phone screen. “Think we ought to stop in Yuma for the night, or keep on going?”

“Keep on going,” Dean said decisively.

“Got a reason for being so sure?” Sam wouldn't put it past Dean to come up with one.  
“Passed through the place once or twice,” Dean explained, glancing over at Sam and waving a hand dismissively. “Not exactly the friendliest place on Earth. Or the coolest.”

“How hot?”

“Hotter than where we just left.”

“Yeah, not stopping sounds like a much better idea.”

Sam had been in the life too long to consider giving it up without (at least) one very compelling reason. Death would qualify. So would a catastrophic injury. He didn't think giving up the hunter lifestyle to open a blog about The Crappiest Hotels In The United States would be a legitimate reason to quit, but oh God, sometimes he was _tempted._ The shock value that these places _existed_ would probably have people throwing money at him to find out where these places were, let alone the surprise when they found out he hadn't tried to manipulate the photographs at all.

It was something he'd started as a way to keep himself entertained on the long drives through state lines. He was very thankful for the digital age, or he'd never be able to hide this particular hobby from Dean. Upon entering each room, he would take the camera out of the laptop bag and snap a picture before Dean plopped the bags down on either a bed (they always got two) or a table (if the room had one). Back before technology had progressed to digital, he had used the Polaroid instant-film Dad kept around for emergency purposes. After Polaroid film became impossible to find, he had switched to regular cameras. Now, he had a collection of hardcopy photographs that he scanned into the flash-drive he kept hooked onto his copy of the Impala's ignition key whenever he had free time and access to a FedEx. It was a damn good thing the 'drive had about sixteen gigs on it; the photographs and other assorted documents (like descriptions of the rooms for his hypothetical retirement job) he kept on there wouldn't have fit on a smaller device.

He wondered what was going on lately with the lack of properly funky hotels they were using. While pleasant enough for someone of Sam and Dean's admittedly low standards, the Stockton Courtyard Inn wasn't their normal fare of lurid wallpaper and garish carpeting either. It didn't even have the decency to have appalling artwork. Sam wasn't sure if he should feel cheated or not, but he dutifully snapped a photograph anyway. Might as well not let the experience go to waste before they were in another eye-assaulting room again.

At least the bedspread was weird-looking. Sam didn't think he'd feel comfortable if at least one thing in any place he slept didn't look as if the owner had chosen it while sober.

Dean, upon entering the room, seemed to feel the same way. “I wonder what's going on with these hotels?”

“Yeah?” Sam asked, a little distracted by the mini-fridge. He wondered who actually went out of their way to design something that actually fit into a chest of drawers.

“They all look almost normal,” Dean continued, sounding confused. “Not sure whether I should be happy 'bout that, or really weirded out.”

Sam, despite himself, was oddly pleased that Dean had agreed with him about something. “I say we go with both,” he suggested. “Wanna go grab some takeout while I see about our next job?”

“Sure,” Dean said, still in that strangely agreeable mood. “Hankering for anything in particular?”

“Nah,” he replied dismissively. “I'll have what you're having.”

“Cool,” Dean said. “Be back in a bit.”

Sam waved Dean goodbye, getting the laptop out and plugging in its charger as Dean shut the door quietly behind him. Shortly after, the thunderous purr of the Impala starting cut the night air and faded as Dean backed out of the parking spot and roared away. He sat on the bed, arranged the pillows into a comfortable backrest for himself, then stretched out his arms and legs, sighing in satisfaction as his muscles and joints resettled into their proper positions. He leaned back and booted up the laptop, pulling his phone out of his pocket and checking for calls while the computer went through its startup process. No calls showed up, which meant no news from Garth or anyone else on the hunter network; that could mean either good news or undiscovered mayhem. Sam chose to believe the former until proven otherwise. There wasn't a point in worrying himself into getting ulcers, and the hunter network wasn't exactly known far and wide for its medical benefits.

For now, he let the pillows take his weight and made an effort to relax. Neither of them had been in any particular hurry to get through California, but traffic around San Diego and Los Angeles had been fierce, even though they'd not gotten near either city until well after their respective rush hours. As it was, Dean had actually let Sam drive after they had passed Santa Clarita, claiming road hypnosis, and Sam had been happy to oblige.

Spending their lives in a car meant that both of them had better road endurance than the average lifelong trucker, so Sam would had been fine for several hours beyond Stockton, but Dean had decided that he wanted to sleep in an actual bed for the night. Sam couldn't say he was okay with the arbitrary decision being made, but driving in relatively unfamiliar territory after dark wasn't something he enjoyed either. Most of the roads they normally drove were back roads, both due to necessity and the fact that they were often chased from place to place. He wondered idly if he would ever find that thought any less ridiculous. Probably not.

Sam logged into the wi-fi network the hotel provided, then got up and went to the bathroom to pee. He washed and dried his hands when he was done, then went back to the bed and resumed his position.

Garth had modernized the hunter support system, creating a fake website with a fake facade that real hunters (or particularly bored and adept hackers) could bypass using a series of specific actions. The final action involved a password that each hunter came up with him-or-herself, and it had to be changed weekly. Sam hadn't enjoyed driving all the way to Garth's, sitting with several other hunters who always looked cross-eyed at Sam and Dean (the fact that they were usually the youngest or least scarred people in the room didn't help) and hearing Garth lecture them all on how to use a computer. At least that part of the talk had resulted in most of the sour looks being redirected to Garth and away from Sam and Dean.

The Winchester family had been hunters for quite a while, but before their dad had died, most of their researching methods had been what Garth called “old school” (something else that hadn't earned him any friends with the hunters who were old enough to be his parents). Sam had helped bring some modernization into the methods they used, but Garth had gone a step further. Instead of hunters having to scan newspapers and rely on word-of-mouth to get wind of jobs to do, Garth instead took as many reliable news sources as he could find, hooked them up to a search engine, and had them search for related phrases. It made searching for non-isolated occurrences _much_ easier and saved time and energy used for legwork. Well-rested hunters were generally more effective hunters, and if Sam caught anyone saying otherwise, he'd hope that someone stuck a renegade evil-as-fuck angel into _their_ heads and see how they coped. Or not. Sam wasn't as big on the whole vengeance thing as he used to be.

Shaking his head, Sam logged into the deceptively innocent looking website concerning home ownership in the backyard of the Everglades (this week), clicked on the “home layout” subsection, found the back patio on the diagram, and deliberately clicked it three times in rapid succession. Most people clicked only once or twice, if Sam was remembering Garth's lecture correctly. He couldn't be sure, since he had dozed off about halfway through.

It loaded a login screen, and Sam logged in quickly, trying not to think too much about how the hunter network had somehow become a less dignified version of the Illuminati. No new messages awaited him, and he'd have to wait until Dean got back for Dean to check his own. Hunters typically had their own separate email addresses, so in case of a partnership dissolving or a group splitting up, each person could still access messages instead of leaving it to whoever in the group had the password.

He asked for recent job possibilities on the West Coast. The website, in addition to helping track down jobs more quickly and efficiently, also gave hunters the chance to “tag” their jobs, so that other hunters wouldn't trip over each other, and help could be called in if needed. The browser was a little slow today, so Sam leaned back and absently played with his cell phone's ringtones until it finally loaded enough for him to scroll.

Isolated incidents in California were present, but repetition was required in order to determine whether or not the cause was due to a harmful spook. Sam left those snippets alone. One job in upper Washington sounded suspect, but a group of hunters had already claimed it. Lower Washington had the same problem as California, so again, Sam ignored them. After a few pages of speed reading, Sam noticed that, in Oregon, several people had complained of being abducted from their homes, questioned by a strange see-through girl in a dress, then awakening on their own front stoops. It had apparently been going on for a little over a week, with a new person stepping forward each day to repeat that sequence of events. Idly, Sam wondered why no one had snapped up this job before, then reminded himself that a lot of the hunters still weren't used to using the Internet to do their research and had probably missed it, especially since no one had been killed.

On a whim, Sam toggled the hunter tracking system. The system was anonymous, with each hunter, partnership, or group featuring its own number; unless someone specifically knew the other's code, there was virtually no way to identify people using it. When people remembered to log their movements, it was easy to see the spread of hunters versus the territory covered. From what Sam saw, the majority of the hunter groups that bothered using the new system were concentrated in the Southern part of the States, with a few isolated blips up in Canada and Mexico. Sam and Dean weren't alone on the West Coast, but several hours' worth of driving wasn't exactly what one would call a convenient distance.

Sam selected the Oregon job, then updated the tracker so people would know where they were headed.

The steady rumble of the Impala's engine intruded on Sam's awareness, suddenly reminding him that he had been staring at a computer screen for a while and his stomach wasn't happy with him.

One heavy creak-thump later, footsteps and a jangling keychain alerted Sam that his brother was about to enter the room, and enter he did, victoriously holding a bag that smelled...spicy?

“Dean, what the hell did you get?”

“Indian food, dude!” Dean grinned charmingly at him, and Sam belatedly realized that his mouth was probably hanging open in shock. “Thought I'd shake things up a bit.”

“Who would have thought this town had Indian food?”

“Dunno,” Dean shrugged, setting the food down on the set of drawers, then taking a bottle out of his jacket pocket. “But I also picked up antacids. Something tells me this ain't gonna be mild.”

Of the two of them, Sam was the one who had a higher tolerance for spicy food. Not that Dean disliked it, but it usually gave him fairly painful heartburn and made him turn interesting shades of red. “I'm already entertained by the thought of watching you eat this.”

“Shut up,” Dean growled playfully, taking his jacket off and throwing it onto his bed. Underneath it, he wore a simple short-sleeved black shirt. Even in the insanely hot Arizonan desert, Dean had categorically refused to take off his favorite jacket. Dean had also spent an inordinate amount of time each night moisturizing the old leather until it had returned to its former faded glory, then stubbornly kept it on the entire week even though it made him look like he was marinating himself. In hindsight, no wonder the people there had been giving the two of them strange looks. Everyone else had been wearing both much lighter and fewer articles of clothing.

“Lessee here,” Dean said, pulling out a few small cartons and opening them. “I got tandoori chicken, naan, chicken tikka masala, pakoras, aloo gobi, and a few other things I'm not sure I can pronounce.”

“I'm not even sure that you pronounced half of that right anyway,” Sam said mildly, shooting his brother a grin.

“Girl behind the counter seemed impressed,” Dean said with a wink. “Pretty sure she wrote her number on the receipt.”

“Great,” Sam said, getting off the bed with a sigh. “Got plates?”

“Right here,” Dean said, digging them out of the bag. “Don't say I never got you anything.”

Sam took the proffered plate, then loaded it with samples of everything. He put his food on his bed and set up a similar pillow-nest for Dean on the other bed so he could sit. Dean acknowledged this with a nod, then sat down and started eating. One bite in and he practically threw the plate aside to run for the water bottles.

Sam concealed a smirk behind a pakora.

One hour and several antacids later, Dean professed himself full, and Sam followed suit. Of all the routines they went through when they reached a hotel, the one Sam liked best was this one. It only occurred after they were both full, fairly comfortable, and about as unarmed as either of them were likely to get; Sam had gotten up for seconds and put his knife and gun beside him, preparatory for stashing them under a pillow, and Dean had laid down a fairly inconspicuous (but effective) salt line near the door and window. The silence was companionable, broken only by shifts of position and the occasional burp.

This was the part of being with Dean that Sam associated with being home, and Sam hated that it only happened when they weren't on the job. Otherwise, after they finished eating, the silence was more focused on finding out more information about what they might face, instead of just savoring the time together being brothers.

Maybe it made him the chick Dean sometimes accused him of being, but dammit, he didn't feel like they _communicated_ anymore. Sam didn't want to even _begin_ to get started on how talking didn't equal communicating on a deeper level. He didn't feel any closer to understanding some of his brother's motivations than he did at any other time. Even when Dean tried to express himself, Sam flat out didn't understand, and someday, he felt like that was going to get them both killed.

“Didja find any jobs for us?” Dean asked lazily, somehow not breaking the pleasant vibe and derailing Sam from his thoughts.

“Oregon,” Sam replied in the same tone of voice. “Female spirit keeps kidnapping people. Even though they're returned unharmed, it might be better to send her on her way.”

“We'll have to break out the FBI credentials again,” Dean sighed. “Damn monkey suits.”

Sam refrained from pointing out that Dean usually loved playing dress-up with the suits because it got him more attention from the ladies. He didn't know if Dean had ever said it or it was just implied in his behavior. Dean always seemed to have a little extra swagger when he played at being a lawman.

Dean got up, changed into some soft flannel pants and a t-shirt, then started his bedtime preparations. Sam could go through Dean's nightly routine in his sleep or with his eyes closed. First, he got out of his day-wear and put on pajamas; contrary to his usually slightly rumpled appearance, he actually folded the clothing he had been wearing before he stuffed it into a duffel. Then, he would extract his toothbrush, floss and toothpaste, go to the bathroom, wash his hands, pee, then wash his hands again; Sam never had found a good time or reason to ask why. Dean would then carefully brush his teeth, making sure he didn't push too hard on his gums, before spitting and rinsing the excess foam away. Then he'd floss while humming some random guitar riff from Led Zeppelin. The humming-while-flossing had always featured Led Zeppelin music, and had since Sam had been old enough to remember. It was comforting how some things never changed about his brother, usually the things that had screamed _home_ to Sam for as long as he was aware of the patterns in his life. Sam had never been a particularly good or deep sleeper, and if he thought about it, the times he actually got what felt like decent rest were the times Dean was able to finish his entire bathroom ordeal, start to finish, with no interruptions.

The one thing Dean never really had to do in the bathroom, or anywhere else, was comb his hair. The close-cropped mop never seemed out of place, even when Dean was covered in blood, caught in a typhoon, or hadn't bathed in days. Fingers seemed to be the only styling tool Dean needed, and much as he loved his brother, that was something Sam outright _hated_ about Dean. Not seriously, but the thought--and resulting jealousy--were there after a hunt, where Dean, even covered in shit, still looked like he could walk into a bar and walk out with a woman, and Sam flat-out didn't.

A creaking sound next to him alerted Sam to the fact that Dean had finished his ablutions, and was sitting on the other bed looking about as relaxed as Dean ever got. “Hand me the laptop, would you, Sammy?” Dean asked, holding out a hand. 

Grunting an assent, Sam handed it over and Dean immediately started clicking through the internet toward the hunter site. Sam had emailed the job to Dean over the server (which Dean jokingly called “Facebook for Hunters”), so he assumed Dean was checking it out.

“How long to Portland?” Dean asked, eyes fixed on the screen.

“A little under a day, if we push it,” Sam said, getting up and stretching a little. He started taking off his clothes, preparatory to getting into some sleepwear. “I'm not sure we should rush in on this one.”

“Weird feeling?” Dean asked, almost absentmindedly. Sam was starting to hate that tone. It always said that Dean didn't know how to ask him whether it was a freaky premonition or just a random gut feeling.

“My gut says yeah,” Sam said, already feeling more tired than the hour should have indicated. He privately felt that navigating his way through the minefield of Dean-speak could probably wear out the Energizer Bunny. “No one's died yet, and the papers aren't publishing names or that many details about how these people are getting taken away. No sense getting in over our heads here.”

Dean hummed assent. “We'll get up there, settle in, then start interviewing people. That alone'll probably take at least a day or so.”

“Sounds good,” Sam replied, removing his jeans with a wince. Sweat-soaked denim seemed to shrink to his legs, and he felt like he'd just given himself a leg-wax. He pointed at the bathroom. “I'm just gonna take a quick shower before bed.”

“Just don't sing this time,” Dean muttered, giving him a quick grin.

Sam rolled his eyes and went for the bathroom before stripping off his underwear. Considering that he and Dean had seen each other naked more often than not, that _one_ occasion of Dean screaming about going blind from seeing Sam's junk had been enough for one lifetime.


	3. Four Days Prior

**Chapter Two: Four Days Prior**

_"'Fools", said I, "You do not know  
Silence like a cancer grows.  
Hear my words that I might teach you,  
Take my arms that I might reach you,  
But my words, like silent raindrops fell;  
And echoed  
In the wells of silence.”_  
Simon and Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence”

Early mornings had never been Dean's forte. Not when he was a kid, not as a teenager, and as an adult, he figured he'd be better off just accepting the fact that the glowing ball of doom in the sky and him just weren't going to get along. That was what he told himself, at any rate.

If he and Sam wanted to make it to Oregon before the sun went down, their best bet was to try and miss the majority of California's rush hour traffic, and given that they weren't doing the usual back-road routes, they would have to leave earlier than usual. Which meant they were heading out _before_ the sun made its grand appearance. Which meant all the coffee that Dean could drink without his bladder exploding on the road.

The mental image was gross and funny at the same time.

Sam had set his cell phone alarm _and_ Dean's before he went to bed, and even worse, Sam had made sure they were both across the room from their beds. Damn Sam for it, but he _knew_ Dean wouldn't get out of bed after shutting off an alarm sitting _nearby,_ so he set it away from the bed on purpose. Once Dean was up and out of bed, he was up for the rest of the day whether he liked it or not.

Six fucking a.m. was not Dean's favorite part of the day, and few things could make it appealing for him. Since there were no naked women in his bed or cheeseburgers for breakfast, he just determined that the day was going to suck and nothing would change it. Business as usual.

Aside from the whole getting up at a God-forsaken hour of the morning, one of the few redeeming values of rising early was that no one would see them leave, and there wouldn't be tons of drivers out on the road less alert than he was. He kept repeating that to himself, as if those facts would make being up before the sun was somehow more tolerable.

Also, telling himself those things kept him from killing Sam over making his default alarm-clock ringtone “Barbie Girl” from Aqua. He could have happily lived his entire fucking _life_ without hearing that song.

Shower. He would function better with a shower. He stripped himself naked without any thought to modesty (not like Sam hadn't seen his bare ass and junk more often than not during their lives) and stalked off to the bathroom, muttering to himself. Whatever crap he thought of the room (which wasn't _weird_ enough to seem normal), at least the shower had nice hot water, and because he hated the world in the morning, he put the temperature on as hot as he could stand without turning into a fair-haired lobster. Let his oversized baby brother get in the shower after him and scream; Dean felt like using up all the hot water, and short of Sam forcibly getting into the shower _with_ him, nothing was going to stop him. Wouldn't have mattered even if Sam _did_ get in the shower with him, since it wasn't anything they hadn't done before as kids.

Now that the hot water was pounding him into something that felt like consciousness, he had to admit that, yeah, he'd _definitely_ mind if Sam tried to get in the shower with him, and not because of the weirdness of sharing a shower with anyone, much less a sibling. It leaned more into the fact that two more-than-full-grown men in a fucking tiny shower stall wasn't going to be anything other than ridiculous, or even dangerous. There weren't any of those little traction-things on the ground to keep them from slipping or sliding around, and God forbid if one of them had to try and sneak past the other without any undesired bodily contact. It _would not work._ The fucking early day did not need any fucking physical contact with a naked kid brother. No day needed that.

Dean sighed, and rubbed his face under the spray. Maybe coffee would help his brain make sense. He wondered if it'd help him forget that he just dedicated his one functioning brain cell about how to avoid touching his naked brother, or his naked brother's equipment. He reached for the soap and sighed. No wonder people implied or outright thought he was fucking his brother.

He reached for the soap and started scrubbing his body with it, as if it could remove the words “fucking” and “brother” from the same sentence.

Body now rinsed clean, he washed his hair, indifferent to the way it stuck up in clumps after he rinsed it. More awake, Dean looked toward Sam's supply of specialty shampoo and conditioner, glanced around as if someone was going to walk into the bathroom without notice, then reached for Sam's conditioner bottle and gave himself the smallest possible amount he could without Sam noticing the difference in weight. Massaging it through his hair, he waited a few seconds to let it set, then rinsed it out. If Sam ever found out that he used conditioner, he would probably never live it down.

Shutting the shower off, he grabbed the towel, briskly rubbed his body until he was just damp, then carelessly slung the towel across his shoulders and stepped out of the tub. The mirror was steamed up, so he swiped a hand across it to get a look at himself. He had bags under his eyes, and said eyes were squinted. His eyebrows were drawn into a frown. His hair was up in clumps, and the ends still had drops of water falling down onto his face. His body was as usual, muscles in the usual places, a hint of extra belly weight he usually sucked in when he remembered, and the roadmap of his life, mapped out on his skin in the form of scarring.

Dean had never had trouble getting attention from women, but looking at himself in the morning, sometimes he wondered what the hell they found attractive about him.

He wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out of the bathroom, letting the steam billow out of the room. Dean shivered a little, reaching inside his duffel for clothes. He looked over at where Sam was laying and stifled a sigh. Sam was staring at the ceiling like it had the meaning to life written all over it. On the other hand, it didn't quite look like Sam was _home_ in there. Dean repressed a shudder. It wasn't the first time he'd ever seen Sam actually sleeping with his eyes open, but it didn't make it any less creepy. He shrugged it off and dried himself off a little more before he got into his clothes. Dean threw the wet towel onto the unmade bed, then pulled on his boxers, rolling his eyes at the slight drag up his legs from the residual moisture. Once securely in place, they clung to his thighs and groin, going slightly transparent in spots from stray water catching on the thin fabric. Dean could only blame himself for the cloth sticking, since he didn't enjoy walking around naked any more than absolutely necessary. The one time he _had_ decided to feel the air everywhere on his skin, he had gotten kidnapped by a witch. Who had kept him naked and chained up until Dad had come in and ganked the perverted bitch. Needless to say, Dean made damn sure to get dressed fast after any and _all_ necessary nudity.

Next, he muscled on the jeans, cursing under his breath at the uncooperative denim, but finally got it hiked all the way up and zipped. Next came the belt, with an iron and silver buckle; it had become his contingency weapon against attacking ghosts. A worn black t-shirt went on over his torso, which was a relief, since the cooler air outside the bathroom was causing goosebumps and raised nipples. For today's drive into cooler weather, he selected a green plaid long-sleeved overshirt and shrugged it on, then put the matching green jacket on the bed next to the wet towel, to put on later. Next came the tricky part; waking up Sam. One of these days, Sam was going to have to explain to him how he could sleep through _alarms,_ but wake up the second someone _touched_ him.

“C'mon, Sammy, time to get up,” Dean called softly, praying that Sam hadn't been dreaming something funky. He didn't like getting stuff thrown at him at the asscrack of dawn. Come to think of it, he didn't like stuff being thrown at him, period, but even _less_ at this time of day. “Wakey-wakey, Samantha! Rise and shine!”

At first, nothing happened, and Dean held himself ready to dodge away or leap toward his oversized baby brother. Then, Sam blinked once, twice, then took a deep breath and squinted his eyes shut. Dean took that as tacit permission to grope in their first-aid bag, find the eye-drops and come close enough to hand them to Sam. Sam turned toward him and opened his eyes again, and Dean handed him the small bottle without comment. Dean busied himself with packing up the few items outside his duffle while Sam put moisture back into his eyeballs. Few things were capable of grossing Dean out, but watching someone put crap into their eyes was definitely one of them.

“M' name's not Samantha,” Sam muttered, breaking the silence. Dean kept himself from smiling. Sam always sounded like he'd been smoking for twenty years and drinking really bad booze right after he woke up.

“Good comeback time, Sam,” Dean replied, tossing a smirk over his shoulder. “Only took you about five minutes to come up with one too.”

Sam grunted, and when Dean turned to look at him, Sam flipped him a very uncoordinated-looking finger.

“Same to you, bitch,” Dean snorted. “Now get your lazy ass up before I wake _you_ up with a girly-ass song you'll be humming all day.”

Sam was never fully alert in the mornings, but he actually managed a wicked grin. “But it woke you up, didn't it?”

Dean glared at Sam, but responded with, “get up and dressed. We'll grab something on our way out of town.”

“Damn main roads,” Sam grumbled, getting out of bed without any further prodding. Dean was surprised. It normally took a shovel and a few death threats to get Sam out of bed, unless he'd had nightmares.

“Well, main roads are faster this time, unless adding days being a tourist up and down the West Coast is something we should do,” Dean offered.

“Maybe when the weather is better,” Sam said, stretching his arms above his head. The t-shirt he was wearing rode up over his stomach to give a glimpse of his belly and hipbones. Dean wanted to chuckle at the sight. Sam never did manage to find things that covered his body correctly when he moved around. Dean had the suspicion that Sam wore more clothing to somehow compensate for it.

“When the weather's better,” Dean agreed indulgently. “You've got twenty minutes. It's nearly seven, so get in the shower.”

Dean prided himself on being above petty vengeance, cheap thrills, or anything of the sort. However, seeing Sam zombie-shuffle to the bathroom, shut the door, turn on the shower and shriek like a little girl at the water temperature a few minutes later was totally _awesome._

All the shit that one hunter told Dean about skipping California rush hour? Dean was almost glad the bastard was dead, because if he _wasn't_ after lying like a goddamn mattress about the traffic on the Interstate 5, Dean was going to fucking kill him _himself._

It didn't seem to matter what time of day or night it was, if the drive into Sacramento was anything to go by. It was eight o'clock in the fucking morning, the sun was up, birds were swooping around them picking up bugs for breakfast, and Dean couldn't remember the last time he'd been so irrationally angry at anything, let alone this massive gridlock around Sacramento. The shit-eating, motherfucking speed limit around here was supposed to be seventy God-forsaken miles an hour, and here they were sitting still listening to cars honking all around them in what Sam would probably call--

“God, this is a total symphony of impatience,” Sam complained. Dean cracked a wry smile at Sam's timing.

“Gotta agree with you there,” Dean said, sighing. “I don't think we've moved a foot in the past hour.”

“Or more,” Sam agreed. “Maybe we should just break out the beer and tailgate.”

“That'd be great, but the cops would probably jump all over us,” Dean replied regretfully.

“They'd jump all over us _if_ they could actually get to us in this clusterfuck,” Sam pointed out, all logical-like, which he’d do at the drop of a hat.

“Better save it for celebrating getting out of this soup,” Dean suggested. “Then we'll get silly on it and that microbrewed stuff Oregon's supposed to be famous for.”

Sam nodded in what Dean could only call enthusiastic approval of that idea, which made Dean happy since he also wanted to have that ridiculously good booze, but it also caused him concern. Dean didn't think there was a single person in the hunting lifestyle who wasn't an alcoholic, a recovering alcoholic, or someone capable of drinking other people under the table. Getting drunk seemed to just come with the territory, but Sam had never really gotten into the bar scene the way Dean did. When they were younger, Dean had liked that about Sam, that he didn't resort to liquid comfort to face his problems. Even now, Sam didn't drink nearly as much as Dean himself did (though Dean was trying to cut back these days), but still, he was resorting to it a lot more often than he did when things were normal. Or at least, less strange. Dean was fairly sure he'd never see _normal_ if it walked up and took off its shirt.

So much damn shit had happened these past few years that Dean was surprised neither of them had had to go to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.

When they reached Portland, Dean was sure they'd go drinking, and they would enjoy the bar scene, and maybe even find a girl or two to take back to the room (or one of them would take the Impala and the other would have the hotel, depending on the adventurousness of their dates), but he'd do his damndest to make sure neither of them got as rip-roaring drunk as some of the other hunters Dean had had to work with over the years before Sam left Stanford. Dean had seen a hunter old enough to be his grandfather dancing on a table, his shirt in one hand and a bottle of tequila in the other, and he had promised himself that it would be the first _and last_ time he ever saw a sight like that again. He'd have a hell of a time doing his job if he had ripped out his eyes like he had wanted to that night.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam broke into his thoughts, and Dean felt fairly grateful about it.

“Yeah?”

“People are finally moving.”

“Fan-frigging-tastic,” Dean exhaled, putting his foot back on the gas pedal. “Maybe we'll actually get where we're going before midnight.”

“I'll just get reservations somewhere while you're driving,” Sam said. “It's still too chilly up there to sleep in the Impala comfortably, and I'm not cuddling you to conserve body heat.”

“Breaking my heart, Sammy,” Dean drawled. “So many people would kill to be in the position you've been in so many times before.”

“They don't have to deal with your morning breath,” Sam fired back at him. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw him smiling a little, and he felt that part of him, the one that was always on alert, relax a little at the sight. He grinned back, completely unrepentant.

“They don't have to deal with your gas problem either,” Dean stated. “I swear, your farts woke me up a few times last night. No more Indian food before bed, man, ever again.”

“You bought it.”

“Fine, rub it in.”

“No way. That just brings up the idea of us sleeping together again, and that's just gross.”

Try as he might, Dean couldn't come up with a reply to that, but with the traffic finally breaking enough to get up to something resembling the speed limit, he didn't think he had to anyway.

The next few hours were blissfully silent. They passed several cities neither Dean nor Sam had had opportunity to visit. Sam had lived in California while he was going to Stanford, but hadn't done a whole lot of traveling due to his schoolwork and later, Jess. Dean could never think about Jess without a whole lot of regret. She'd seemed a sweet girl, and obviously in love with his brother, which by itself would have gotten her anything Dean could have given her. It had been equally obvious that Sam had loved her too--

\--and Dean ripped himself away from those thoughts. Sam hadn't gotten to travel around California much, so he was silent as they drove down the road, probably watching the scenery or whatever he did while Dean was driving. Sure as hell wasn't talking. Mutual silent agreement had had Dean bypassing Stanford while they were making their way to Stockton. Dean personally wouldn't have argued for or against stopping at the scene of Sam's near triumphant escape from the hunting life, but Sam had gotten quieter (even for him) and looked more and more unhappy the closer they got. So, despite the extra time spent behind the wheel, Dean had kept going without making any reference to what he saw written all over his brother's face. Dean prided himself on being able to read between the lines where Sam was concerned anyway.

Dean loved to drive. Things just fell away when he was behind the wheel, barring some weird times like when he hadn't been able to sleep for days; he had been hopped up on so much caffeine he remembered being shocked that his heart hadn't leapt out of his throat to land yards away from his body. Or at least, he remembered that part _after_ he had slept for the majority of the next day. It was hard to think back on that, mostly because he had been so twitchy that short-term memory had become a luxury instead of a necessity.

It was very freeing, to be able to get into a car, turn the ignition key, and hear his baby purr to life, ready to take him to the next town over, carrying him in safety and style with his brother next to him muttering over books, maps, and job information. Landscape passing by at high speed was comforting to him, and the constant vibration that told him the car was running kept him centered on the here and now. It was only when he was driving, feeling the _here and now_ quality the Impala always inspired in him, that he could think about the past or the future without regret or fear. It was also the place he felt closest to Dad, which wasn't something he was planning on telling Sam. He knew Sam had loved their dad as much as Dean, but in a different and far more antagonistic way; Dean didn't feel like dragging either of them backwards over the jagged glass sensation of their memories, so he just never brought it up.

Damn, he was getting poetic in his old age.

Dean didn't know if this inherent wanderlust (as Sam would call it) was something he was born with or something Dad had instilled in him, but he had never liked staying in one place for long. Having a home had been fun, pleasant even, for someone who hadn't been used to the newness of the idea. To go back to the same place every night, with the same decorations, the same people, the same booze, even the same damn bed, was awesome until it _wasn't._ Then Dean would start feeling restless, and when he got restless, he got quieter than he normally was. Then Dean started climbing the walls with the need to just take the Impala and _drive_ somewhere no one knew, a place where no one knew him, in order to get away from it all. To see new faces, sleep in a new bed, and if he was very lucky, sleep with a new woman, though that was only for when he was otherwise unattached. As an adult, Dean didn't cheat on his girlfriends. It was just better to not have a central home, or if he was to get one, someday, make sure it wasn't somewhere he'd be spending most of the year.

In the end, he was who he was, and that was nomadic by nature, or whatever word got used to mean that he didn't like staying in one place all the time. It was so much better to drive, even if the other drivers on the road were idiots. Having not been on this stretch of road before, Dean noticed he was spending a lot of time passing people. It felt like his left hand was constantly on the blinker and his eyes were flicking between the side mirrors and the rear view mirror a lot more than normal. California drivers, in Dean's humble opinion, were batshit insane. More than half of them were going well above the posted speed limit, and nearly all of them would wait until the last second, when Dean himself was sure that a rear-end high-speed collision was inevitable, before swerving around him, honking as if _he_ were in the wrong.

“I'm really close to getting out my shotgun and shooting some of these morons,” he admitted to Sam in a low voice, surprised at the growly note in his voice. He checked the time, and blinked. Was it really near noon?

“I'm really close to joining you,” Sam agreed grimly. “You'd think these people were getting chased by something.”

“Maybe they are,” Dean said sardonically. “There's gotta be reasons why we avoid California like this.”

“Too many cities close together,” Sam brought up promptly. “It's harder for what we do to go unnoticed.”

Dean nodded, giving the point to Sam, but it didn't mean that these idiots had any excuse to drive like crap, and he said so.

“You're right too,” Sam said, “but it's not like we can get all these cars off the road either. I heard that even traveling at night doesn't get rid of all of them.”

“Tell me why we didn't do the backroad crawl?” Dean sighed.

“The other freeway we could have taken, the 101, has more small towns along it, but it also takes like three times longer to get anywhere because we'd be going up the coast,” Sam said after a pause. Dean figured he was probably turning pages in that encyclopedia he always seemed to have in his noggin. 

“Also, and this is a theory, but I think all that salt in the air prevents ghost manifestation anyway,” Sam continued. “All the other spirits we've encountered stayed further away from the salt water, even the pirates from that one time.”

“Huh,” Dean said, impressed. “I'd never thought of that.”

“I've been thinking about it for a while,” Sam confessed. “The roads in Arizona didn't exactly occupy my mind.”

“Can't help you there,” Dean shrugged, then laid on the horn a second later at a jackass in a blue Prius passing them. “Dammit, stay off my ass, you crappy tuna can!”

The Prius owner, an older woman, and her jumpy little white dog, flew by on the left, and the old woman flipped them the bird as she passed. Just as she managed to get ahead of Dean and Sam, the guy in front of her braked, making her hurriedly slam on her own brakes. With a smirk, Dean returned the finger as they cruised by in the middle lane.

“So, wanna stop for lunch soon?” Dean inquired casually, trying not to laugh. Karma was a bitch, after all.

“Sure,” Sam said, all too obviously holding in his chuckles.

They had lunch in Redding, and Dean tried to be happy that they were getting tons of sultry glances from the women in the first decent-looking diner he had seen from the road (and the food seemed decent), but he was really annoyed at the time loss from the gridlock of the early morning. If it was noonish now, and he and Sam followed their usual pattern of taking a brief walk after eating, then it would be another couple of hours until they crossed the border into Oregon, which was slightly more familiar territory, but it threw away the idea that they would be pulling into their hotel room before the sun went down. Not much Dean could do about it now. Going top speed through the mountains with the Impala would be suicide, since even Dean admitted his baby wasn't the most delicate of cars. Most of the vehicles he'd seen this far north were of the smaller, lighter, and more maneuverable variety.

Fishtailing off a mountain road to their deaths wasn't how Dean intended to go. This time, anyway. He didn't exactly make a habit of poking fun at their circumstances, but neither Dean nor Sam ever seemed to stay dead for long. Guess it was hard to keep good men down, just like Dad had said.

“What are you thinking, Dean?” Sam asked, stealing a french fry off of Dean's plate. Dean tried to get offended, but it was kinda nice to see Sam _not_ eating so damn healthy for once.

“That you ask me that question a lot,” Dean muttered out of reflex.

Sam just snorted. “Yeah, because you never _tell_ me what you're thinking,” he retorted, sounding a bit annoyed. “Not everyone can just infer what's going on in that head of yours.”

“Okay, that's fair,” Dean conceded, trying not to get annoyed in return. “I was thinking about how we were going to make the last leg of this trip.”

“Well, it's winter in the Pacific Northwest right now, so going as fast as we can probably isn't an option,” Sam said logically. “Let's just see how it is. I'm sure we'll get there today and find a place to stay without too much trouble.”

“I'm not worried,” Dean automatically stated. “Just thinking about how it's going to go, is all.”

Sam rolled his eyes, and the waitress who had been helping them eyed first Sam's obvious (to Dean) irritation, then Dean staring at a plate that had crumbs and stray fries on it. 

“Coffee, you two?”

“More for me, thanks,” Sam said, looking up at her with a small smile. Dean looked up too, because she hadn't made much of an impression on him the first time. He had a hard time letting go of the road when he was out of the car, and as a result, his situational awareness was always a bit off.

On a second look, she still didn't make much of an impression on him. Average height, average build, with short brown hair and light brown eyes. Her nametag said “Lola.” Dean didn't feel like charming her today, but he did nod at her for more coffee, and was soon rewarded with a fresh refill of liquid caffeine. Dean smiled at her, ignored her blush, and dedicated himself to adding the perfect amount of sugar to the blackness to make it go down easier. Sam was the nutcase who either liked it black or in weird mixed drinks like cappuccinos.

They sat in silence because Dean was too busy sucking down the coffee to make coherent conversation and Sam, despite looking as though he'd had a full night's sleep, was doing the exact same thing. After downing half his mug, Dean looked up and caught Lola's eyes, and saw her jump a little with surprise. Dean just shrugged at her, not attempting to be charming, and held his mug up to her with a little sheepish look. She bustled over to refill it, leaning over a little more than Dean thought strictly necessary, and whispered to him, “if you're having trouble with your husband, there's a great counselor over in Medford. My wife and I go there all the time.”

Dean stared at her. Had he heard her right? Sam was pretty obviously shocked into silence. Dean would ordinarily be happy about that, except for-- “excuse me, _husband?”_

“Well, yes,” Lola said blithely. “Pardon me for saying so, young man, but you two are looking awfully troubled.”

“Husband?” Sam choked out, looking like he'd swallowed a porcupine. He appeared to be just as stuck on that word as Dean was.

“Well, yeah, though I suppose that I shouldn't call you that here, what with all the Proposition 8 crap that's been going around,” Lola continued, seemingly unaware that Dean was staring or Sam was about to pass out from surprise. “Same with not calling my wife my wife, though she and I have been together for years longer than some of those other, more _traditional_ couples--”

“We're _brothers_ ,” Dean interrupted before she got too much further into her diatribe. His face felt like it was going to melt off, he was blushing so hard. It sure as hell wasn't the first time someone had assumed that he and Sam were together in the biblical sense, but it probably was the first time someone had said it outright, without all the insinuation that went with it.

“What?” Now it was Lola's turn to look surprised.

“We're brothers, ma'am,” Dean said, trying to be polite while he felt like crawling under the table. “He's my baby brother.”

“But I guess, from your reaction, we fight like a married couple?” Sam added weakly, trying to smile a bit.

“A bit,” Lola said, turning red. Dean noted absently that she was cuter when she was embarrassed. “I am so _sorry!”_

“Not the first time, and probably won't be the last,” Dean offered.

“My wife's told me I shouldn't just to conclusions like that,” Lola muttered. “It's just that you look so close to each other and then I heard part of your conversation--”

“We know,” Sam said. “We've never really been out of each others' pockets when we were growing up, so that makes it look like--”--Sam waved his hands--”what you were thinking.”

“But we certainly don't mind you telling us we look close,” Dean said, trying to keep them out of any other potential conversational holes.

Lola squinted her eyes shut and looked like she wanted to hide, but she apologized again, and when Dean and Sam left the diner, Dean noticed that she had halved their bill. He left her a bigger tip in appreciation because she had seemed a nice person, her assumptions aside.

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when Dean checked the time, so he figured a walk around the block once or twice would help them get the food down and keep them fresh for the next leg of the trip. Dean enjoyed the opportunity to walk whenever he could, and took deep breaths of the fresh air, ignoring the way Sam was looking at him when he did.

Finally, they piled back into the car, not wanting to delay the trip any further. Dean slid into his accustomed place with a sigh of both appreciation and regret; much as he loved driving, he did get stiff after a while, and changing drivers while going at speed was only something he had tried _once_. That was enough for one lifetime.

Sam had diligently activated both the GPS device on his phone and pulled the West Coast roadmap out of the glove box. Some people probably actually used the thing for gloves, but aside from holding the Impala's registration, it also contained a gun, ammo for the gun, a holy water vial, a knife, and all the roadmaps they could fit in there and still get it to click shut.

The Impala purred to life as Dean turned the ignition key, still faintly warm and responsive from the couple of hours before they had stopped for lunch. Starting the car cold had a different sound, harsher, but no less familiar to Dean or Sam's ears. Dean still would rather have the Impala warmed up continuously, because driving her in really cold weather was nothing less than a total pain in the ass. Dean loved the older muscle cars, the ones that _looked_ more solid than the random Toyota or Ford he would pass on the road, but he would always be envious of how much simpler it was to maintain a newer car's upkeep. The Impala needed a little more tender loving care than most people were willing to put into their vehicles, and Dean doubted that any of them had had to virtually rebuild their cars from scratch. Then again, very few people shared a bond with a car the way Dean and Sam did with their home with wheels, all irony aside.

“How long do you think it is until Medford?” Dean asked, getting back onto the I-5 North. 

Sam consulted his map, or at least, Dean heard the crinkle of paper shifting around. 

“Maybe three hours, give or take, depending on traffic,” Sam replied after a few minutes.   
“I think I'm good until we stop again, but once we cross over, let's get the colder-weather gear out of the trunk.”

“I'll find a rest stop far enough out that no one'll look at us twice,” Dean said confidently. He meant it literally, and he knew that Sam knew it. Anyone driving around with the literal arsenal they had in the Impala's trunk had to make damn sure that no one thought them dangerous enough to call the police over, or worse, the FBI. It was a lot like changing drivers while going fast enough to crumple a steel-bodied car, in that getting back onto the FBI's Most Wanted list was something Dean would be happy to go without. 

Although it _had_ happened to him a couple of times; he had lost count after the second or third time.

“Weather shouldn't be as damn cold as it was last time we were there,” Sam offered, as if it would make finding an unoccupied rest stop easier.

“It's still not exactly Miami in the summertime by the pool,” Dean commented wryly.

“Nothing is,” Sam agreed. “Still, it's not like we're going to need full-blown parkas or anything like that. The Impala's windshield-wipers are going to get a workout, though.”

“It rains a lot, is what you're saying,” Dean said without any irony.

“That's right.”

“I got them fixed up a few weeks ago, so they'll be fine.”

“Just wanted to make sure, that's all.”

“Long as we get enough clear windshield to not go off the road, we can handle anything.”

Dean loved to drive. Honestly. He really did love to drive. However, the drive through the mountains of California and Oregon might have changed his mind.

It wasn't that the roads were overly curvy, or the speed limit was unreasonable. In fact, the drive was one of the most beautiful Dean could remember doing in his entire life. If they had time afterwards, he wouldn't have minded going back down and stopping so he could take photos. Sam thought he could hide that little hobby of his, but Dean knew damn well where that camera was, and what was on it. Some of those pretty little areas were going to get put on a laptop so Dean could remember. He had even laughed outright when they had passed the exit for Winchester Road, and figured it would have made a pretty sweet background for their laptop.

His problem was pretty simple; the other drivers.

The Impala was not a modern car, and it used more gas and was more temperamental than a lot of newer cars out on the road. Dean could understand if people were getting impatient with following _him_ up and down the curves, since he had had a hard time maintaining speed, then dropping it fast once they reached some comparatively level road. What he didn't understand was how people would zoom by him on either the right or the left, get in front of him, _then slow down_ on an uphill. Didn't those other idiots know it wasn't good for car engines, having to downshift that fucking much when going up an incline?

Dean wasn't normally prone to road rage, but he had cursed, under his breath and louder, practically nonstop, until they finally got to a rest stop to pull over, get their thicker clothes, then get back on the road. The stop was the only point where he had actually _stopped_ muttering horrible things and throwing the finger out his window. To his surprise, Sam wasn't much better. They were both used to the others' style of driving, but this stretch of road seemed to make even _Sam_ nervous. He was unconsciously alternating stomping the brake and gas pedals, and he was pushed as far back into his seat as he could get. It looked as though Sam would have been perfectly happy going _through_ the padding to get to the back seat.

Dean would have liked to have had that luxury himself.

The sun was down and a few stars were showing by the time Dean finally hit Portland city limits. Passing through Medford and Salem was a blur in his mind; he was totally focused on getting to their destination, and not much else aside from their safety on the road was in his head. He had been tempted, more than once, to use the heavier metal frame of the Impala to sideswipe some people off the road, but, anger-fueled fantasizing aside, the Impala was far too recognizable for Dean to do that with impunity. Older cars were making a comeback as more people found the fun in restoring them, but in this area of the country, Kansas plates were few and far between. In addition, Dean was sick and tired of having to alter his baby to escape notice from the police, so if he could help it, he would much rather not have to change out the plates. Dammit, sometimes he hated being a basically decent man.

“You got a hotel for us?” Dean said at last, seeing signs for Wilsonville pass by.

“How much money are we willing to spend?” Sam asked, sounding sleepy. He must have been dozing, and Dean immediately felt an irrational bit of jealousy about Sam getting in a nap.

“You tell me,” Dean said absently, feeling his eyelids droop. “I know they have a FBI office right in their downtown location, so it might be better to not be too far away from there and scan for their frequency.”

“Good plan,” Sam said agreeably. “But the closer we get to downtown, the more expensive the hotels, not to mention that we'd have to pay for parking, according to the Internet.”

“We have to _pay_ for parking?” Dean yelped.

“That's what an old friend of mine from this area said,” Sam said, not sounding nearly as shocked as Dean felt. “If we get a hotel downtown, we get charged for parking as well as the room.”

“Okay, we definitely need to get further from downtown,” Dean said. “Should we pull over?”

“I'll look something up,” Sam said, getting out his phone. “I'll hopefully have something for us before we can't find our way back.”

Dean just concentrated on the road. Just as he was reaching some exit to a freeway called the 217, Sam said abruptly, “take this exit.” 

Dean, just as quickly, signaled and went for it, happy that he didn't have to change lanes. “That wasn't much notice.”

“Sorry,” Sam said apologetically. “The other options didn't seem to have as many useful things close by, and this one's right near a freeway entrance. It's called the Phoenix Inn Suites.”

“Dammit, we just _came_ from there, Sam,” Dean complained. “No more phoenixes after this.”

“We came from that podunk Gila Bend place, not Phoenix,” Sam reminded him, sounding all too smug for Dean's liking. Dean, not for the first time, wished that the Impala had an ejector seat. “We only went _through_ Phoenix because we were coming down from Colorado.”

“Fine, whatever,” Dean gave in, trying to sound gracious. Sam's soft huff of laughter said he wasn't succeeding. “What exit do I take?”

“Greenburg,” Sam said. Dean heard his fingers tapping gently on the phone's small screen. “Then take a right. You'll see the sign.”

Dean almost said, “but will it open up my eyes?” He caught himself just in time. No need to let Sam know he liked _some_ pop music. 

He exited and turned as Sam had directed, and noted that the hotel was located conveniently near a gas station, a burger joint (Dean wondered if that had influenced Sam's hotel decision in any way), and a shopping mall. On second thought, Dean didn't know why Sam would want to be near a mall, but whatever. At least they wouldn't be trying to find a campground or a newly developed neighborhood at this hour of the night.

Sam exited the car as soon as Dean pulled up to the office and parked. Dean just stayed inside, idly rolling down a window to take in the fresh air. The faint smell of rain, baking bread and gasoline filled the air, and Dean took a deep breath, happy to not smell either his brother or himself. They were both clean and fairly healthy men, but after several hours in a car together, their combined smells, as well as the food and the gas that Sam inevitably passed (he totally tried to deny it, but Dean hadn't been born yesterday and there was nothing fucking wrong with his nose) made it a bit difficult to breathe. Also, Sam got downright pissy whenever Dean rolled down his window; he claimed it was because he got cold more easily than Dean did. Because of that, if Dean got the opportunity to air out the Impala, he fucking _took_ it.

Sam got back into the car and directed him to just park anywhere; their room was on the first floor, and Dean obliged. He would be happy to just get _out_ of the car and settle for a while before doing anything involving this case. First things first, he supposed; first, decompress from the drive up here, _then_ dedicate all his energy to the case.

Dean smirked a little bit as Sam practically leapt back out of the car to go to the hotel room; probably wanted to take a photo before Dean could see him do it and ask why. Not that he needed to ask why; he'd seen Sam do this for ages before he had finally gotten curious and dug in the camera's memory. Someday, he'd probably get around to actually flat-out _asking_ Sam to tell him why he was taking pictures of all the hotels they'd ever slept in, but that wasn't going to be anytime soon.

Dean still had very vivid memories of how Sam had been as a teenager. No Winchester survived puberty without being a stubborn little bastard, but Sam in particular had been grouchier than Dean remembered _himself_ being when he was a kid. Sam had insisted on school, on looking like the regular joe family he _knew_ they weren't, and had dodged all the lessons in self-defense and gun-care both Dad and Dean had tried to throw at him. Any time he was asked a question, he would respond with anger, bitter sarcasm, or just fall into a silence that _Dean,_ with all his quiet when driving, was hard-put to match. The only thing he had ever wanted to do related to the hunting life was read up on the critters they killed.

Dean knew, in his head, that adult Sam was different and wouldn't argue with Dean or refuse to answer unless he was angry. Still, Dean wasn't sure how to be open with Sam again, like they were before hormones, girls and (eventually) Dad got in the way. It was safer to be quiet. Maybe it was cowardly (well, okay, Dean had to admit it was cowardly) to not just flat-out ask Sam what was going on in his head. In his defense, he had years of reasons that backed up why questioning Sam was a bad idea, and it was hard to get around them. He also felt that it would open _him_ up for the same treatment in return, and he wasn't ready to have to answer for half the shit that had happened to him over the years. Sam was too quick, and probably had everything ready to fire back at him in his brain, which would fluster Dean, which would send them into an argument or several days of silence, both of which would affect how they did their job until they somehow reached the status quo of not-talking they had perfected over the years.

Sometimes, it scared Dean how truly screwed up his life was, all because he could predict the beginning, the middle and the end of an argument before he or Sam even had a chance to open their mouths. Dean had never really considered himself a quitter, but it would take a lot to have them sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk when no one had ever told him how to do it without yelling or almost dying first. He sighed, shrugged, and stepped out of the car. At least they were in for the night, and nothing much was going to happen in the next several hours, with any luck.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam asked, as Dean was making his leisurely way to the trunk. Dean took the time to open it and sling his clothing duffel on one shoulder and his weapons bag on the other before responding. 

“Yeah?”

“It's about an hour or so until the mall closes,” Sam said, almost bouncing in excitement. Dean gave him a funny look. Sam hadn't been this enthusiastic about shopping since...come to think of it, had Sam _ever_ enjoyed going to the mall?

“And this would be an important thing, why?” Dean asked, getting to the door and throwing both bags onto one unoccupied bed; turned out Sam had left him the one closest to the door, which was good, since Dean preferred it that way.

“We can run up there once you're ready and get takeout for dinner,” Sam answered in that infuriating 'of course' manner he had had since puberty made his voice crack. “They've got burgers and other stuff for you, but they have an actual Japanese stand there too, and dammit, I haven't had sushi in years!”

And if Dean recalled correctly, that was because fish, in _any_ form, gave Sam gas that might, literally, have been from hell. Screw the plans for an uneventful evening; after they got done with dinner, they were going shopping for industrial-strength air fresheners if it was the last thing he did.


	4. Three Days Prior

**Chapter Three: Three Days Prior**

_“He sent me searchin'  
To find my love,  
He sent me searchin'  
I said, Lord up above,  
He sent me searchin'  
Just to find the mornin' dove.”_  
Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Searching”

Portland in the wintertime, Sam decided, wasn't exactly a picnic. He wasn't a stranger to cold or wet, or even both at the same time, but the biting wind somehow made him feel like he was experiencing winter in some way totally unlike how the rest of the country did it. Reasonable people, Sam felt, stayed _inside_ when it was wet and cold and windy. People here in Portland didn't seem to know the rules.

For one, every single person he passed on the streets in downtown Portland stared at him, either for wearing a wool coat, or due to the umbrella he was fighting to keep open; Sam wasn't exactly paying close attention to where people were looking, but it seemed to be at one or the other. For another, there were a _lot_ more people out and about than Sam was expecting. 

Quite a few were clustered around a building that, upon closer inspection of a golden plaque, proved to be the courthouse, and Sam, wondering why some people were standing in a specific location, looked up and saw what he _initially_ had thought was Poseidon, but was instead “the lady Portlandia,” as one woman had said very kindly. She explained that she'd seen him staring and had figured he must be new to town. She looked to be around Sam's age, and was wearing a blue plastic-like outer coat, a thicker-lined inner coat that was orange, a black skirt that exposed legs clad in green flower-detailed tights, and what looked like combat boots. Sam was pretty sure that _real_ combat boots didn't come in quite that shade of red.

He took the time to thank her very politely, but when she gave him a look that had indicated she would have been happy to explain a few _other_ things in more detail, he made an excuse and kept walking. It wasn't because she was ugly or anything like that; if Dean had been the one there, he would have happily taken the girl up on her invitation. Random pickups just weren't really Sam's thing, and he doubted they ever really would be.

Sam had had guy friends over the years who had had the same mentality about women Dean seemed to have; it was okay to have one-night stands, and they informed the woman about it before anything happened. If everyone was fine with the arrangement, Sam personally couldn't see anything wrong with it, but it wasn't something that felt right to him either. Generally, he preferred to make connections with women (in the innocent sense; Sam prided himself on being a gentleman) _before_ he tried to sleep with them. He couldn't remember a time where he had taken a woman to bed just because he thought she was pretty.

Dating strategies aside, Sam figured Dean at least had enough subconscious formative memories of Mom to do right by women, even if he wasn't into commitment the way Sam was. God knew that their dad wasn't exactly a sparkling example of manhood to hold up to any sort of standard regarding being a boyfriend or a spouse, much less a parent; case in point, he _had_ given them a brother neither knew about until adulthood, and Sam knew that he hadn't been much of a father there either. In all fairness, Sam hadn't known what Dad was like before the driving motivation to kill the yellow-eyed demon had taken over; for all Sam knew, he could have been a caring family man instead of the hard-ass he had grown up under. On the nights that Dean was drunk enough to be talkative, but not belligerent, Sam had questioned him about what he remembered, which honestly wasn't much. Dean had been only four years old when Mom had been killed, but what Dean _had_ remembered had been telling.

_Sam stopped himself from having that one additional beer that would have sent him from comfortably hazy to uncoordinated drunkard. Dean had passed that stage long ago, but tonight, Dean was the one who needed to dull the knowledge of what they had had to do that day. Killing or hurting anyone wasn't easy, no matter who or what it was, and Sam didn't want anyone to tell him different. They had done good today, he knew, but exorcising that little boy of a low-ranking demon hadn't been easy for Dean to bear. It hadn't helped that the boy had sort of resembled Ben, who Sam flat-out knew Dean missed._

_“The kid at least still has his parents, Dean,” Sam said. “He'll be fine.”_

_“At least until one of them dies,” Dean said darkly, cradling a double whiskey. Tonight his eyes were darker green, the way they got when he was depressed and trying not to cry into his booze. His left hand was bandaged, due to the possessed kid slicing him with a knife. The wound hadn't been deep, so Sam had just cleaned it out, closed it with butterfly clips and kept some gauze in place against it with tape. “It's always harder after one dies.”_

_Sam perked up a bit. Even though the warmth and faint floating sensation that being on the right side of drunk brought him, Sam knew an opportunity when he saw one. “Why's that?”_

_Dean waved his uninjured hand in the air, making a vague gesture. “It's that stable family shit,” Dean said, still staring into his drink. Sam felt a bit of gratitude to the fact that Dean, even nearing the complete shit-face stage of drinking, spoke clearly. “The mom's the more nurturing force, and the dad's the one who protects you. They both try to do the others' job, which is great, and make sure the kid knows he's loved and that his mommy and daddy love each other too, and that's just how it should be. How it was.”_

_Dean looked up then, and Sam, even in his haze, felt startled at how sober Dean looked at that moment. “It's not the same when one of them dies,” Dean continued, blissfully unaware that Sam had, suddenly, snapped out of the alcohol stupor. “Dad was like that. The only thing he could focus on was the fact that Mom had died. He loved us and tried to take care of us, but it was like only half of him was with us, Sammy. Then the training started, the drills, and the constant moving around.”_

_He sniffled a bit, and Sam had the horrifying realization that Dean was choking back tears. “I just remember thinking that, if loving someone hurts that goddamn much, then I don't want to ever love anyone like that. Because if Dad was only half a man when Mom died, I don't want to think about what would happen to me if I married a girl and she died too.”_

_Dean had then looked back down at his drink. He didn't look up from it again the rest of the night, until they had had to leave._

Sam had remembered waking up without a hangover, then staring at Dean for an hour until he had woken up. That drunken speech had given Sam some disturbing insight into why Dean barely let _Sam_ into his headspace, much less a pretty girl. Dean at least knew how to deal with women; he let them talk, gave them a shoulder to cry on, and if Sam had to guess, he was generous in the bedroom as well. It was no wonder why women liked Dean, even if they only got to have him for a night or two. However, it was also how Dean kept women from getting too close to him; if he was completely focused on the woman in question, wanting to know more about her, her needs, and her thoughts, more than half the time she either didn't even think to ask Dean the same questions back, or she thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread because he _actually wanted_ to know what she thought about things.

Sam supposed it was also about stability. Since Dean had had it before Sam was even born, having it ripped away must have been a lot worse for him than Sam growing up completely without it. He shook his head to clear it, then shuddered when some rain, blown off his increasingly useless umbrella, dripped down the back of his neck. Sam muttered nonsense under his breath in an attempt to keep his temper.

After they had eaten dinner, found a grocery store (Dean had been unusually insistent that they go and buy some supplies, including what Sam had felt was a disproportionate number of air fresheners) and gotten back to the hotel after only getting lost twice (Sam had heard Dean grumbling about the lack of straight lines in the entire city), they had looked up the case details. The victims had had nothing in common, except for all being located within Portland or Portland's suburbs. One victim had been an adult black woman in her 40s with two children and a loving husband, another a young white man barely twenty years old who had just broken up with his boyfriend (Dean had taken the time to wonder why that particular detail had been in the newspaper), and yet another was a second man, this time in his 30s, who had had no real description provided. There had been one or two other victims while Sam and Dean had been driving up, and as was the case, more people were stepping forward to give details about it having happened to them as well.

Timeline-wise, Sam hadn't felt like it added up, and Dean had agreed with him. However, interviewing all the victims they could was a priority, and Sam had volunteered to go downtown to the Oregonian newspaper’s headquarters, speak with the reporter responsible for compiling the story, and coordinate meetings with the anonymous victims. Dean had taken the Impala to go to the people who had been willing to identify themselves. Both had dressed in their best pseudo-FBI outfits, though Sam had decided not to wave it in the faces of the people who had agreed to meet with him. If the victims hadn't wanted to be outed to the public regarding what had happened, the least he could do was respect their wish for privacy.

Sam had already taken down the names and numbers of the anonymous sources the reporter had provided. Sam remembered feeling a little uncomfortable about the intensity with which the reporter stared at him, but the man had been polite. Sam also wondered if everyone in this city was as open about what they preferred in a sex partner as he had seen thus far. He kind of liked it as long as it didn't go beyond his comfort zone, but he wasn't used to being checked out so blatantly by anyone, much less another guy.

One of the sources had agreed to meet with Sam in about half an hour at some place called Powell's, which was where Sam had again run headfirst into what must have been another Portland thing; the man had gone very silent when he had asked what Powell's was, then had just said, “you'll see,” given him the address, and hung up. Sam found that it would take at least half an hour to walk from the Oregonian headquarters, which was near some university called Portland State (though Sam wondered how an entire university could be located downtown without causing problems) to Powell's, which was on 10th and Burnside.

The walk itself was an experience. Pedestrians didn't seem to care whether or not the walk signal was lit or not; everyone seemed to just check the roads, then cross. Buses, cars and something that basically looked like an electric train rattled by as Sam kept walking, using his phone's GPS to guide him, until finally, wet, irritated, and wishing that he hadn't chosen today to wear the khaki-colored dress slacks instead of the black ones (since they showed dirt way too well), he was standing in front of what might well have been Heaven.

Powell's was a bookstore. It was a bookstore that took up an _entire city block._ Sam stared at it for a full minute, almost not breathing, wondering how in the world could he have lived as long as he had and _not_ known something like this actually existed. 

Sam stared until he was jostled by an apologetic guy wearing a tight green shirt and skintight black spandex, who was straddling a bicycle. Not for the first time that day, Sam wondered what was going on with peoples' clothing in this city; who wore spandex in public unless they were going to some kind of socially-unacceptable party? Sam didn't think it seemed right to go outside without at least two layers on.

Sighing, Sam waited for the walk signal to light (people at this particular intersection seemed fine with obeying the traffic laws), then crossed the street, hearing people chattering excitedly as they did. The vast majority of the people swerved toward the left, where two large red doors were situated under a large overhang. A homeless guy stood near them, holding out a thin newsletter. Sam noted that the name of it was “Street Roots,” then on a whim, asked for one and gave the guy five dollars in return for it. The guy thanked him with a big smile and a wave as Sam folded up his umbrella and entered the bookstore.

The first thing about Powell's that hit him was the overpowering smells of coffee and paper, which seemed embedded into the walls of the place. Sam breathed it in deep, feeling his shoulders relax a bit. Every good library he has spent time in as a kid and as a student at Stanford had smelled exactly like this; it was familiar, almost homey, and Sam knew that he'd be figuring out ways to spend time here even after the case was completed.

The warmth of the place took over his attention almost as soon as he noticed the smell. Other people, if Sam was any judge, felt it too; almost immediately upon entering the store, a near-universal divestiture of jackets and any additional layers took place. Sam was no exception, and hastily unbuttoned his coat. Taking it off while juggling the umbrella in the crush of people didn't seem like an immediate option, so he left it on. He looked up, and noted a help desk to the right of the entryway, and several cashiers to the left, near a large window display that faced the street. A giant, color-coded sign hung in front of a corridor lined with myriad book displays, and at a glance, seemed to say what section of genre was where. Sam was specifically looking for the cafe section, and noted that it was just beyond the Gold Room, where the science fiction and fantasy books were kept. He glanced back down the small corridor, labeled “blue room,” and saw a small ramp leading upwards.

A bookstore that was a block long, _plus_ the fact that it had several _floors and levels_ worth of books? Sam suddenly understood what it was like to get a case of the vapors, because it honestly felt like he was going to faint. 

He moved to the left, walked up the ramp, then stepped to the side in order to catch his breath. He made the mistake of looking down the aisle where he paused and grinned. So many books! Sam wondered if Dean would buy the excuse of needing additional hardcopy research books to add to their storehouse. In a place this large, there had to be a rare books section, in addition to a sizable occult area that had more than the typical teenage love-charm shit.

Sam sighed again. That would have to be for later. Work first, _then_ play.

Feeling a little calmer now that the initial rush of book-lust had subsided, he stepped out of the aisle and headed toward a sign that said “gold room.” Ascending a short flight of stairs got him into a room with a massive window on the left, ceiling-high bookshelves on either side of him, and several displays of books and what looked like games. Beyond them, he saw a sign and another open entryway that indicated both the romance section of the store (which Sam didn't have an interest in) and the coffee shop (which he did).

The coffee smell was, unsurprisingly, stronger here, but now he smelled warm bread and sweet pastries as well. Sam's stomach growled, and he absently patted his stomach, promising it something later. It didn't listen to him, but Sam hadn't expected it to either.

He looked around, hoping to see what had been described to him on the phone. The guy had said that he'd be wearing a pair of jeans and a blue polo. A minute or so later, Sam spotted a guy matching the description sitting near a window, a green jacket slung across the back of the chair.. As Sam approached, the guy turned his head and stood up, holding out a hand to him. Sam noted in passing that the guy was shorter than him, blond, and didn't look like he saw a lot of sun. 

“You Sam?” The guy asked in a surprisingly deep voice.

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “What should I call you?”

The guy hesitated, but Sam had made a point on the earlier call that he wouldn't try and get a real name from him, and that reassurance paid off. “Call me Jim,” he said finally. “It'll work for now.”

“Nice to meet you, Jim,” Sam said, then gestured to the seats. “Should we begin?”

“Sure,” Jim said, sitting in the jacket-covered chair. Sam took the other one, set his umbrella near the window, and began the inevitable fidgeting routine he did in order to get comfortable. He didn't like the idea of having one leg hanging out into the walkway, which blocked or even tripped people who needed to get by, but he liked the idea of having his legs tangled up with another guy's even less.

Sam remembered _wanting,_ with a painful desperate longing before and an ironic amusement now, to be taller than Dean, who had towered above Sam up until Sam's sixteenth birthday, just to say that he had more of _something_ than Dean. Sam wondered if this was a case of being careful what he wished for, because now he had trouble keeping his legs to himself. 

Jim, however, proved to be a bit quicker on the uptake than most people; he scooted his chair back a little further from the table than he had to, making it possible for Sam to fit both legs under it without bumping or getting between his. Sam gave him a wordless smile of appreciation, took his notebook out of his pocket and finally shrugged out of his jacket, revealing the sensible dark blue button-down shirt and a matching striped blue-and-white tie he had chosen earlier.

Jim raked a hand through his blond hair. “Didn't know other newspapers wanted to cover this weird thing that happened,” he offered. “I thought the Oregonian was doing a pretty decent job covering it and keeping my real name out.”

“They are,” Sam hurried to assure him, flipping open to a blank page and giving what he hoped was a calming smile. “I'm a freelancer, and sometimes my pieces have been used in conjunction with the already reported news.”

“So you just want the facts again?” Jim said, looking dubious.

Sam sighed. “That and whatever else you can possibly remember about the circumstances in which you were taken, where you were being kept, and how you were returned.”

“I thought the Oregonian asked me everything they could,” Jim said thoughtfully, putting an elbow on the table and resting his chin on his hand. “Can you ask me questions? I don't think my answers are going to vary much from the original article otherwise.”

“If they don't, it's okay,” Sam lied, trying not to grit his teeth. He couldn't afford to go and look for a dentist right now, not to mention that he'd have to find a way to drag Dean in there if he went. He mentally scolded himself back to the topic. “I was planning on asking you a few different ones anyway.”

Jim waved his unoccupied hand at him by way of a response, so Sam clicked his pen and got ready to write. “Was the day before your abduction any different from normal?”

“Not really,” Jim said, frowning a little in concentration. “I'd gotten up and dressed for my work; I'm a pharmacy technician at a Wal-Green's near here, further down Burnside. Had a small tiff with my girlfriend, who thinks that one of my guy friends wants to get me into the sack.” Jim scoffed a little at that, and Sam took note of it; Jim himself might think nothing of that, but Sam had seen way too many people over the years do stupid shit for love to be comfortable ignoring that kind of detail. “I told her she was wrong, but she didn't want to listen, and she had to go home anyway so she could get ready for class.”

Sam wrote diligently as Jim explained his day. He'd caught various buses and the MAX (which Sam discovered was the train-thing that had gone by him while he was walking) to come downtown, worked his typical shift, and nothing super unusual had happened to him beyond a few angry customers who didn't understand why he wouldn't dispense controlled medication without more than their word. Jim dismissed it as typical, and Sam noted that too.

A behavioral pattern started emerging to Sam as Jim continued to talk, this time about the day he was abducted; the guy was a master of dismissal. Nothing happened that he didn't wave off with an uncaring expression, including the morning argument with his girlfriend (who Sam found had called him several times that day to argue the point some more) and the customers who threatened him with bodily harm for his attitude (which Jim didn't seem to think he had).

“So yeah, like I told the other reporter, the day was ordinary,” Jim finished, looking a little troubled. “At the end of my shift, that's when the weird stuff started. The lights started flickering like crazy, and it felt like a storm-cloud had come into the pharmacy. I thought someone had left the back door open to the rain, and next thing I knew, I was in a dark room somewhere.”

“Flickering lights and feeling cold, you said?” Sam said, feeling his interest being restored.

“Exactly,” Jim said. “I didn't know how I got there; one second I was behind the pharmacy counter at Wal-Greens, next I was somewhere else!”

“Then what?” Sam asked, writing 'ghost' and circling it on his paper.

“This ghostly thing appeared,” Jim said, sounding more and more unsure by the second. “I thought I was seeing things, y'know? Something like that afterimage crap?”

“Did the ghost-thing say anything to you?” Sam asked, leaning over the table a little.

“Well, yeah,” Jim said. “Started asking me questions.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Questions?”

“Yeah,” Jim said. Sam waited, but he didn't elaborate further. “I was scared for a while, but since she didn't hurt me at all, I started relaxing.”

“What kind of questions?” Sam asked again, putting some urgency into his tone.

“Kinda personal stuff about my life,” Jim answered, looking uncomfortably around the room. Sam also glanced around to see if anyone was listening in, but didn't see anyone, so he put his attention back on Jim. “I didn't really like some of the stuff she asked, and said so, but then she...”

“She what?” Sam asked, wondering what the expression on Jim's face meant. He almost looked like he was having an epiphany.

“Well,” Jim said, looking uneasily around the room again, “this isn't something I really mentioned to the Oregonian writer, but a lot of the stuff she asked me kinda hit home, y'know? The personal questions were personal, but she helped me see things in a different light. How rude I was being to people who didn't deserve it, pointing out that I wasn't paying enough attention to the important things in life, stuff like that.”

Sam felt a little excited at the additional information, but carefully didn't let it show on his face. The Oregonian article had only said that they were captured by a mysterious woman dressed in white, but Sam felt increasingly sure that it was a poltergeist of some kind. But what kind of ghost asked people _questions_ and then let them leave unharmed?

“Once we had talked for a while, the ghost-woman disappeared,” Jim finished, leaning back in his chair. “Next thing I knew, I was sitting in front of my door at home, feeling a bit cold, but otherwise fine. I'd somehow been gone a whole day, and my parents and girlfriend had been worried sick.”

“Can you describe to me what the woman looked like?” Sam asked.

Jim's face scrunched up a bit as he thought. “Kinda young. Not full-grown, but dressed weird; kinda medieval peasant. She had an accent.”

“What kind of accent?” Sam asked patiently.

“I think either Scottish or Irish,” Jim said. “Really thick too. Sometimes it was hard to understand her.”

“No name?”

“She didn't give me one,” Jim said. “But damn, she gave me some great advice.”

“Yeah?” Sam said, puzzled but curious.

“Well, she made me see that my girlfriend was feeling really insecure about her relationship with me,” Jim said, looking happier. “She was pushing it onto my guy friend, trying to get me to pay her more attention by getting him more out of my life than he already is. We had a talk and things are better now than before.”

“That's....great?” Sam hesitantly asked.

“Oh yeah,” Jim said. “If I had to get kidnapped again randomly by some young lady that looked like a ghost, I'd be fine with it!”

Sam thanked Jim, shook his hand, gathered his coat and umbrella, and made his way out of the bookstore cafe, feeling more confused by the second. His stomach growled again, probably unhappy with the way Sam had been ignoring it. Sam rolled his eyes and decided that, if he was going to think about what was going on, he would likely be better at thinking with a full stomach. He retraced his steps to exit Powell's and, stopping only to put on his coat, stepped outside. The wind felt like a bitter slap to the face after the incredible warmth of the store, and Sam hastily buttoned the jacket shut, feeling a little better afterwards.

Next question; where was he going to eat? Sam wasn't familiar with the area, and though he'd passed a few restaurants along the way, his stomach didn't seem to want to wait that long to get something in it. He stepped to the corner where he'd crossed before and looked both ways. A red sign caught his attention from a distance, and he decided that, as soon as the walk sign went on, that he would cross and check it out. A few minutes later, he was standing in front of a restaurant called “Noodles and Company,” reading over their menu, before going inside.

He ordered a macaroni and cheese bowl because it seemed the fastest and the most satisfying thing on the menu. Sam personally thought the entire menu looked delicious, but on a blustery day of random wind, sun and rain like this, he wanted something warm that had a lot of calories. Sam, on principle, would have happily ordered some vegetable-laden tofu dish if Dean had been there to eat with him, but today he wanted to indulge himself a little, the lack of Dean's amazing grossed-out and disturbed faces notwithstanding.

He grabbed a glass bottle of juice, looked at the weird name, and shrugged before he paid for it, took his little number placard, and found an empty two-seater table where he could stretch his legs to his heart's content and wait for his food. He took the notebook out of his jacket pocket and put it on the table, but didn't open it. Instead, Sam thought about what he had been told.

Jim, if that was actually his real name, had been young, younger than Sam. There had been an air of immaturity around him, as if he had just barely moved out of his parents' house. Sam didn't have any firsthand experience to back up this impression, but several of the guys he had met in college had that same air, the idea that they could try and fail at anything they wanted as long as their parents were ready and willing to bail them out. This didn't mean that Jim was a bad guy, but it did help to build up as clear a description of Jim as he could before he met up with Dean again.

It would be easy enough to check the story by verifying the Wal-Green's security footage from that night, and Sam flipped open the notebook in order to make a note to that effect. He would have to have Dean do it, since Jim thought he was a reporter and Sam didn't think it wise to break that cover yet. Why Jim, though? What was so special about Jim that a ghost, or whatever the hell she was, would go through the trouble to materialize, grab one guy, then disappear and talk with him in a room for twenty-four hours?

A soft “excuse me?” at his elbow drew Sam out of his thoughts. The same person who had rung up his food order, a short young woman with dyed-black hair in a ponytail, held a tray with a bowl full of macaroni and cheese. 

“Got your order,” she said shyly, putting it and a rolled napkin full of utensils down in front of him and taking his placard. “Enjoy!”

“Thank you,” Sam said, smiling at her. She blushed and walked away, and Sam broke open the cloth napkin to get at the fork trapped inside. The first mouthful of food had him frantically sucking in air to save his tongue, but the taste was totally worth it.

Or, looking at his cell phone's clock, it had just been a _really_ long time since breakfast.

The first _incredibly_ hot mouthful of pasta had Sam feeling a little more cautious, so he stirred the macaroni around in the bowl and watched the steam waft up from it. As he waited for it to cool enough to eat without danger of his mouth burning, he continued to think about what Jim had said.

On top of kidnapping Jim, who looked fairly ordinary to Sam's trained eyes, why would a ghost or other type of apparition want to discuss ordinary problems in Jim's life? Family, work and personal lives didn't seem to interest ghosts who held grudges or unfinished business, and with one exception, Sam had had yet to meet with a ghost that hadn't tried to hurt someone. Injuring and killing was the normal operating procedure for them, so if what Jim had told him matched up with the information Dean was gathering as Sam ate, then what kind of creature were they dealing with, if it wasn't a ghost?

Sam sighed and tried a careful bite, relieved that it didn't try and burn him the way the initial one had. He started to eat in earnest, appreciating the food, and came to the reluctant conclusion that, if he really wanted to speculate, it would be better to see what kind of information Dean had come up with first.

Sam had come downtown around 9am, if he reckoned correctly. Since Dean had taken the car, Sam had been forced to use public transportation, which, though awkward, had gotten him to where he needed to go. His feet had provided the rest of the transportation. It had been nearly eleven when he had finished with the Oregonian writer, and past noon when he had finished his interview with fake-name Jim. After Sam finished eating, he once again checked his watch and sighed as he saw that it was already nearing two in the afternoon, it was Friday, and he hadn't gotten nearly as much done on the case as he had wanted.

Full of what had turned out to be _very_ delicious mac and cheese, Sam ventured back out into the cold, sighed as a cloud passed overhead, then was surprised when the sun warmed his neck. He looked up and saw that the sky was a patchwork of rain-heavy clouds, blue sky, and the sun shining brightly enough in intervals to blind someone. Sam wondered if Portland natives _really_ had to deal with this inconsistent weather all the time, or if today was some kind of special occasion. From the appearance of several people calmly walking by on the street, Sam was forced to conclude that it was normal.

He leaned against the part of the restaurant wall that was partially covered by the awning and pulled up the map function on his phone. He was fairly certain that he could find a bus stop that would take him back to the hotel without assistance, but he wanted to make sure of the route. The absolute _last_ thing he wanted was to call Dean to pick him up from downtown, because then Dean would probably laugh at him for getting lost, which in itself was the pot calling the kettle black. God knew that if Sam didn't help navigate back roads for Dean, Dean would literally spend _hours_ backtracking until he found a familiar landmark, and all because he refused to ask for directions or use the map function on his phone. Sam frowned at that. Maybe it was because Dean didn't know how to use to the map; if that was the case, Sam would have to figure out a way to casually teach him how without actually teaching him.

Dean learned things quickly and well, a talent Sam envied. However, Dean absolutely _hated_ being taught anything new. Dean had once joked that he never minded getting taught new things by pretty girls, but Sam knew better. Dean just hated to be seen as anything less than perfect by anyone, particularly Sam, and especially didn't like being ignorant about things.

Sam hated being ignorant about things too, but Dean somehow took it to a whole other level of know-it-all syndrome. It seemed that, in Dean's mind, every insult he came up with automatically scored hits against the likes of Crowley, Castiel, and even Lucifer (prior to the fallen angel wearing Sam's body like an Armani suit), and all the information he gathered had some bearing on whatever case they had going. Sam usually had no problems putting up with the combination of know-it-all and big-brother-knows-best, but lately, it had been bothering him more than usual.

The rain hadn’t started up again, and the wind had also died down to a mild breeze. Sam was happy about that, since his tiny umbrella didn't look like it could stand more punishment. He looped the strap around a wrist and went back the way he had originally come, paying close attention to the directions on his phone. He briskly crossed the street when the walk signal came on, crossed again, bounded across the street where a stop sign was, then headed up toward Broadway.

He turned his head to look curiously at a bunch of small bicycles somehow chained to a post when he felt someone bump into him with a small sound of dismay. He whirled around just in time to catch at the person's arm, and felt his hand close around a bicep. The person turned out to be a young woman, who was more than a foot shorter than him with short, dark brown hair. She was wearing a purple and gray jacket zipped up to her neck, jeans, and sneakers. Brown eyes behind gold-framed glasses looked up at him curiously, and the woman cracked a crooked grin. 

“You might wanna be a bit more careful when you're walking,” she said, and Sam was relieved when she didn't sound angry. “I was all set to dodge you, and then you stopped, and I bumped into you.”

“I am _so_ sorry,” Sam said, hoping he got across that he meant it.

“Since you saved me from falling into the street, I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you,” she joked, still smiling. She gave him a once-over, then stared up at him. “You probably hear this a lot, but you are the _tallest_ guy I've ever seen!”

Sam chuckled a bit, uncomfortable with the attention. “Good genes, I guess.”

“Share them around,” she urged. “Being short gets old.”

“I bet,” he replied, belatedly realizing he still held her arm. He let go, feeling a little awkward with her continued attention. “Um, yeah, sorry about your arm.”

“It's fine, it's fine,” she said airily. “I didn't even notice. I'm just enjoying the size differential between us right now.”

He outright laughed. “Well, sorry again, and glad you're okay.”

“Thanks for the catch,” she said. “You're not lost, are you?”

“No, just trying to find a bus stop that'll take me out of downtown,” he said.

“Head up to Broadway, then hang a right and keep walking until you see Pioneer Square,” the woman said helpfully, pointing the way for him. “Once you're there, as long as you head toward the river, you'll find all the bus stops you need.”

He thanked her again, shook his head as she walked away from him, briefly wondered if all Portland people were as friendly, and got moving, since her directions agreed with the map on his phone.

Less than ten minutes later, he arrived at Pioneer Square and found it a scene of barely controlled chaos. The MAX trains came up and down on either side of the square, which looked like a small amphitheater made from bricks instead of concrete, with a Starbucks as its crowning jewel. People were milling around, trying to get into the Nordstrom's across the street, standing near a street performer beating out a tune on some giant overturned buckets, and even just sitting on the bricked steps of the square itself, socializing, lighting cigarettes, and even dancing. Sam couldn't remember seeing anything quite like it in all the cities he had visited.

He checked his phone in case he had missed any calls, and found a text from Dean. It read 'when you coming back?' 

Sam shook his head at Dean's grammar, but texted back, 'I'm finding a bus from downtown. Will text you again when near the mall. Come get me from there.'

Sam waited a minute, but no return text came. He shrugged and walked toward the river, as the purple-jacketed girl had indicated. His phone buzzed in his hand after a few minutes, and he read, 'sure. Later.'

It was just as well; Sam didn't really know what to make of the interview with the guy who wanted to be called Jim, and he also didn't want to call Dean in this noisy area and have to shout random things into a phone. He turned his head toward the Square with a frown, suddenly realizing that someone was shouting out expletives at the top of his lungs.

Sam realized he might have to rethink the random point, but he _still_ had no desire to shout things about ghosts into a phone, in broad daylight, surrounded by all those people.

The bus stop had several people milling around by the time he arrived, and the sun peeked out of the clouds again just as he got there. Sam gratefully stepped into the sunbeam, feeling warmer almost instantly, before it disappeared behind a cloud. The bus shelter, to his surprise, had a tv display in it that showed the arrival times of several different buses. Sam had, once he had gotten to the mall (the Washington Square mall, he reminded himself), taken a bus numbered 56 into downtown, so, if he wasn't mistaken, he wanted the same one to take him back where he had started. The arrival time was five or so minutes, so Sam set his feet and waited patiently.

He was glad that he hadn't tried to overrule Dean and drive into downtown. Heading up Broadway, he saw that it was a one-way street, and there were other one-way streets here, seemingly laid out in a grid pattern. Parking was also awful; he had passed a parking structure near the university further up the road that charged twelve dollars to park for three hours. Sam had the horrifying thought that the price might actually _increase_ on the weekends, so people would have to pay more; he hadn't seen any actual evidence of it, but he was damned sure that the only reason Dean would have ever let him take the Impala was if he could guarantee that the car was parked somewhere safe and off the street.

Sam realized that the arrival time for the bus was up, and he imitated the other people at the stop and looked down the street, hoping to see the requisite ride. True to form, the 56 pulled up with a noisy roar, and people poured out of the bus from both entrances, dodging the others Sam had been waiting with, who had formed a line at the front door. Sam dug in his pocket for the transfer slip the first bus driver had advised he keep on him, happy that he had chosen to get an all-day pass, and showed it once he had stepped up into the bus. The bus driver nodded once Sam showed it, and Sam turned his attention to finding either a seat or a handhold, finally seeing an empty seat at the very back. He started to sit just as the bus took off, turning just in time to fall into the seat with the acceleration.

He stared out the window as the scenery flew by, seeing buildings, people walking, and--wait, was that a guy on a unicycle dressed like Darth Vader? 

Sam whipped his head around to look, and saw that he wasn't the only one to have seen it. Several people on the bus also had their heads turned to stare, but the bus driver didn't bother stopping, though Sam did hear the guy laughing. The remainder of the ride was otherwise uneventful.

Sam remembered to text Dean when they reached an intersection Sam had seen from his ride to downtown, and sure enough, when the bus circled around to drop them off at the mall's transit center, Dean was leaning against the Impala's shiny black hood, arms crossed, looking bored, and dressed like an FBI agent in a black suit, green shirt and plain, darker green tie. Sam noted with some amusement that several girls were pointing at him and talking amongst themselves, and one or two were even taking pictures with their cell phones. If Dean was aware of the attention, Sam couldn't see any proof of it.

Sam stepped off the bus and walked over to Dean, hearing the muttering getting louder. He schooled his face to prevent the grin he felt coming on from showing, but couldn't resist saying to Dean, “you know they're taking photos of you, right?”

“'Course,” Dean said absently. “It's why I was holding still. Let them look, right?” He turned and winked at the girls, and Sam winced as some of them shrieked with what he assumed was girlish glee.

“Guess so,” Sam said.

“They're taking even more photos now that you're standing near me,” Dean noted, almost pouting.

Sam chuckled, remembering the girl from downtown's weird comments. “They're probably enjoying our size differential.”

“Huh?” Dean scowled at him. “I'm not short.”

“Neither of us are,” Sam said, deliberately not explaining himself. “Let's go, huh? Unless you wanna grab a bite?”

“Nah,” Dean replied. “That can wait. Hotel, debrief, then food.”

They both piled into the car without further ado, and Dean unceremoniously started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. The ride to the Phoenix Inn was very short. Sam could have easily walked the distance, but it had involved either crossing the street as soon as he exited the mall's parking lot, or walking through a hilltop graveyard until he reached the legal crosswalk at the bottom. Sam didn't care if Dean thought he was lazy, but there was _no way_ that Sam was walking through a graveyard without backup, even if it was broad daylight.

Dean parked the car in a close-by spot, then turned it off and exited without saying a word. Sam figured that his own investigations hadn't gone as well as he had hoped. His suspicion got confirmed as soon as they walked through the door.

“I got nothing,” Dean grumbled as soon as the door shut. He stripped off his suit jacket with rough, irritated motions, and Sam winced as he heard some stitching crack. The suits weren't that expensive, but finding ones that fit either of them well was a tough order.

“Nothing?” Sam asked, sitting down on his own bed. He also removed his jacket, but prided himself on doing it more carefully.

“Yeah,” Dean said, loosening his tie and sinking onto one of the beds. “I interviewed two people, and their stories didn't match. At _all.”_ He undid the knot and slid the tie off his neck with the faint rasp of cotton on silk. “One, the woman, tried to tell me that she got knocked unconscious and woke up in a room, without doors, by herself, and didn't get to go free until she mentioned her children. The other one was a guy who kept trying to tell me that he got free by getting naked.” Dean unbuttoned the topmost button and ran a hand through his hair. “No common factors at all. Sounded like they were just trying to get out of work.”

Sam blinked, recognizing his cue. “The guy I interviewed sounded legit, but what he told me definitely doesn't match what your two victims said.”

“What'd he say?” Dean leaned over and started unlacing his shoes. Sam couldn't help but snort softly at the sight. Dean loved to play dress-up, but the clothes came off the _second_ he didn't need them anymore. 

He took a breath and got back on track. “Well, first off, the guy didn't want me to know his real name, so he went by Jim...”

From there, Sam recounted the conversation he had had, complete with flickering lights and cold air. Dean perked up the moment Sam mentioned the ghost-signs, but subsided when he spoke about the ghost not only making sense, but expressing interest in another person. Dean, when Sam finished talking and they had both changed into normal clothes, was frowning so hard Sam was afraid his face would somehow freeze that way.

“At first glance, this sounds like a standard-issue ghost,” Dean said finally, the frown smoothing a little. Sam took that as a positive sign.

“Yeah, but the clothing and the circumstances don't,” Sam agreed. “Did your two hypothetical vics say anything that related to what I just told you?”

“They all agreed that they had been abducted,” Dean said, a dubious note in his voice. “We can access their records and see if they've got any sort of criminal history, or go and question them again if the next batch of victims don't have anything in common either.”

“Good idea,” Sam replied, and peeked at the hotel's complimentary alarm clock. “So, it's a little after four now; you wanna grab a bite, then see if we can catch at least one more person to interview?”

“Sure,” Dean said, standing up and grabbing the suit jacket. “No fish, though.”

Sam looked at Dean, confused at that outburst, but Dean didn't seem to want to explain that statement. “Okay, no fish,” he conceded anyway. “Did you have something specifically in mind?”

Dean started off into space for a minute, then looked like he had an idea. “Well, there's that place down the road, Gustav's, that has German food. What say we try that?”

“Is this because The Sound of Music was on tv last night before we went to bed?” Sam asked wryly, making finger-quotes in the air. “'Schnizel with noodles' ringing a bell?”

“Shut up,” Dean said with an eye roll. “You were totally singing along with it.”

“Who doesn't?” Sam challenged. “And are we walking or are we driving?”

“Waste of gas to drive,” Dean said, waving a hand. Sam idly wondered how he managed to do that without looking effeminate. “Walking's fine.”

Sam followed Dean out the door, then locked it securely behind them. Sam walked around feeling almost calm, knowing that they were both armed. It didn't take long to step inside Gustav's foyer, where they were greeted and escorted to seats. The interior was all dark woods and sweet-smelling beer, and the people already sitting looked at them curiously as they followed the waiter. Sam and Dean sat where the waiter indicated, and were handed menus. 

“We'll be a few minutes, but feel free to look over the drink and appetizer menus while we get someone to take your order,” the waiter, a blond considerably shorter than Sam, said cheerfully. “Enjoy!”

“Thanks,” Sam replied politely, and was echoed by Dean a second later. The waiter walked quietly away and Sam focused on his menu. His knowledge of beer wasn't all that great, but he was open to trying new things, and he knew Dean hadn't yet encountered a beer he didn't like. Having a drink sounded great after a day that had, in response to their hard work, turned up exactly nothing. He knew he was being impatient, but dammit, he was used to having a bit more in the way of concrete information before they moved on whatever the hell was here.

The impatience also had elements of worry. A lot of their other cases depended on the size of the towns; the smaller the town, the greater relative ease of locating remains and clues. Big cities like Chicago and Portland weren't the easiest to search, and the GPS, helpful people (Sam thought wryly once again of the purple-jacketed woman downtown) and the bus system could only go so far in helping them gather clues and evidence. It didn't help that the larger the town, the greater potential for discovery. It hadn't escaped Sam's notice that he had _literally_ passed a FBI building, a jail and a courthouse all in the same day and within the _same fifteen minute period._ Having law enforcement officials that close to each other practically ensured that communication lines were always open, so they would have to be super careful about when and where they used their fed personae.

“Not feeling the appetizer, Sam,” Dean said, breaking into Sam's increasingly moody thoughts. “You want one?”

“Don't think so,” Sam replied, concentrating on the drink menu. “Just a beer. I'll just get this Dopplebock thing, if I'm even pronouncing it right.”

“I'll get a Pils,” Dean said. “Don't be surprised if I try yours out for size, though.”

“Same to you, Dean,” Sam said indifferently. “I'm just hoping for results, is all.”

“Drunk results or case results?” Dean asked, abruptly focusing all his attention on Sam. It made him twitch.

“Case,” Sam said shortly. “When will the last person be expecting us?”

“About six or so,” Dean said, and looked like he would have said more, but the waiter, who turned out to be the same guy who seated them, showed up, introduced himself as John, and asked for their drink orders. Dean stated their choices to John, who nodded, wrote them down and went to get them. Sam realized they needed water, but just as he thought of it, another waiter stopped by with a smile and placed full glasses on their table. The ice-filled water clinked gently as it settled.

Sam blinked. “They have psychic waiters?”

“Probably just saw that we didn't have any,” Dean suggested. “If people come in here for the speciality beer, then yeah, water is good.”

Sam chuckled softly, and nodded. Dean was probably unaware that he had meant that ironically. Their waiter, John, brought their beers a few minutes of comfortable silence later, and asked if they had made any food decisions. To Sam's utter lack of surprise, Dean ordered the weiner-schnitzel, but seemed disappointed that it didn't come with noodles. Sam, for his part, had been torn between the sauerbraten and the cabbage rolls, but decided to get the cabbage rolls. He'd rather not have the problems in the bathroom that Dean did. Meat and potatoes only did so much for a person's intestines, and God only knew that Dean couldn't be bothered to eat vegetables unless they came in or with something. Sam was just thankful that Dean couldn't get noodles with his meal. Maybe tonight he wouldn't have to turn up the tv to drown out the sounds of near-agony Dean probably thought he was muffling while he attempted to pass something.

Sam sipped his beer and smiled. It was really good, and he said so to Dean.

“Mine's great too,” Dean said. “God bless the Northwest.”

“I'll drink to that,” Sam agreed, handing Dean his pint. “Here, let me try yours.”

Dean agreeably handed over his drink, and Sam found it also to his liking. He took another sip before he gave it back to Dean, getting his own drink and a nod of approval from Dean in return. Sam made a note to come back here for happy hour, even if the food turned out to be terrible; the beer was _more_ than worth it.

Sam's thoughts about the food turned out to be relatively unfounded, since what appeared in front of him after he had drained half his beer smelled amazing and tasted better. Dean seemed to agree, even if he ended up salting the veggies far more than Sam would have if they had been on his plate. Sam was suddenly struck with the thought that, since Dad and Dean ate a lot alike, then no wonder their dad had always looked constipated; the guy probably _had_ been. A freakish fantasy came over him, undeniable in its strange power; would their dad had still been with them if he had only been able to take a dump?

Sam shook his head, trying to get rid of the thought _and_ its accompanying mental image. These were _not_ thoughts conducive to a dinner as tasty as this. Even if they might have had a basis in reality.

Talking during meals was one of those minefields that Sam tried not to step on too often. If they were discussing cases or something related to the job, they could talk without a problem, but other topics didn’t work too well. Sam had tried it numerous times, and every time they had managed to have a conversation about anything else, they had about five more times where they didn't. With food this good, Sam wasn't exactly feeling as though he was shorting himself somehow by not talking, but the thought was there, like it always was. Instead of talking, in between bites, Sam tried to watch Dean as stealthily as possible.

Dean looked tired. Sam had suspected for a long time that Dean never slept well their first night somewhere unfamiliar, and as time went on, his suspicion became more of a certainty. The beds in hotels weren't always the most comfortable, and Sam could totally understand Dean's exhaustion; he hadn't started the day feeling so great either. For some reason, even though he hadn't remembered dreaming anything out of the ordinary (and it made him sad that dreams of hellfire and dead loved ones being murdered before his eyes were normal), he had been startled out of his sleep a few times for no reason he could hear, then had fallen back asleep, only to have it happen again. Maybe the sound or whatever it was that had woken him hadn't repeated at regular intervals, but he hoped that the same thing didn't happen tonight.

Sam wasn't sure how he did it, but he managed to finish nearly everything on his plate and all of his beer, and sat back with a sigh of satisfaction. Dean had also finished his food and was similarly situated on his side of the booth. The waiter came by with their ticket, and Dean paid with cash, not even wincing when he saw the prices. Sam, for some reason, was reminded of their time in Stockton, when Dean had gone out of his way to procure food he normally didn't eat, and here he was again, willingly going out of his comfort zone of burgers and domestic beer.

Sam wondered what was going through his mind. Normally Dean insisted on more familiar stuff, but Sam just shrugged it off; if it was allowing him to actually get vegetables into Dean and vary their diet without some kind of argument, then he was all for it.

“Ready to go to the next interview?” Dean asked, sounding grumpy. Sam could relate. The last thing he wanted to do was get out of this booth and face the outside world, but at least he was fortified with good food and better beer.

“Guess so,” Sam sighed in response. Better to get the interview over with quickly. A not-so-sneaking suspicion made him believe that they'd both be snoring before 10 tonight.

Getting older _sucked._


	5. Two Days Prior

**Chapter Four: Two Days Prior**

_“Oh brother, I can’t, I can’t get through.  
I’ve been trying hard to reach you ‘cause I don’t know what to do.  
Oh brother, I can’t believe it’s true.  
I’m so scared about the future and I want to talk to you...”_  
Coldplay, “Talk”

Dean woke up with his lower body hanging half off the bed, sheets tangled up with his legs and his sleep shirt rucked up to his armpits. Oddly, considering the position, he felt well rested. Either the air-fresheners were doing their job (and they damn well better have, considering what Dean had paid for them), or Sam hadn't had a whole lot to get out of his system in the literal sense, but Dean hadn't been woken up by any horrifying smells, so he was going to call it good. Today was already shaping up to be more interesting than yesterday.

Yesterday had been a bust in the usual information-gathering avenues. Sam had gotten more useful information out of his victim than Dean had, but there were plenty of other people to go before their information feed dried up. Sam had asked him to pose as a fed and get the tapes from the Walgreens where the Jim guy worked, and Dean had done that, but predictably, there hadn’t been any useful information on them. This didn’t surprise him if the monster _was_ a ghost, since there wasn’t much to go on in videos where they were concerned.  

Today, they were going together, division of manpower of things be damned. They'd interview more people if they went out separately, but whoever had the car was going to be able to see more people, and driving would be faster than public transit. Might as well have an extra set of eyes. Dean couldn't even remember how many times one of them had caught a key bit of information the other had missed, and in any case, he thought it was better to stick together than miss something important.

Yesterday's last interview, a young woman in her mid-twenties, had kept hitting on them and inviting them back to her place instead of telling them about her ordeal. Dean would normally have found it flattering that a cute gal wanted to have him in the sack (he chose to ignore that she had been flirting with Sam at the same time), but they weren't there for fun, they were there for _information,_ and she flat-out wasn't delivering. A few times, he'd caught himself staring at the space between her eyes (pale blue and kinda pretty, not that he'd cared after the third blunt offer of her 'potentially remembering something, like, after dinner') willing her to say something _useful._ Eventually, after far too much time spent batting her eyelashes, flipping her long blond hair, and leaning forward on her elbows (Dean hadn't even bothered to peek after the fourth time), she'd finally coughed up something that had agreed with what Sam's guy, Jim, had said.

She'd (Dean had forgotten her name as soon as they'd walked out of her house) said that she had been taken to a dark room, and a “chick dressed like some old school Renaissance Fair wanna-be” had started talking to her “like some kinda leprechaun, or that guy from Star Trek” (which made Dean want to smack her, since the guy from Star Trek had been _Scottish,_ not Irish). Sam, bless him, had asked her to clarify the accent, and she said it was more like the Trek guy's voice (which made the urge to hit her even stronger), but thicker.

Over an hour of forced flirting, putting up with hands in areas that he needed a whole lot more booze and a prettier woman to accept (he idly wondered if her parents had ever told her about “bad touching”), and some of the worst coffee he'd ever had (seriously, did anyone actually _like_ that caramel creamer shit?), and all Sam and Dean had had to show for it was the fact that the same ghost-type thing had showed up to talk to her. Unlike Jim, the girl hadn't taken any grand scheme of improvement away, probably because she hadn't been able to understand (or, as Dean not-so-privately thought, take to heart) half of what had been said to her.

There had been another reference to “stupid leprechaun talk” out of her, but Dean, for the sake of his sanity and to keep from breaking his word about not hitting women unless they hit him first, had stood up, held out his cell phone, and claimed that their boss had just sent them an “agent in distress” text. Sam had quickly backed him up. Thank God someone had given his kid brother some brains.

Sam could also have been just as fed-up with the girl as he was, but either way, they had gotten out of there as fast as possible. By mutual agreement, both showered that night, and though Dean couldn't speak for how Sam had washed himself, Dean had taken extra special care to scrub himself pink in all the places she had laid her grubby mitts. Dean _had_ noticed some of Sam's torso looking a bit more raw in places than it did normally, and figured it hadn't been due to the soap. Sam had given him a wan smile when he'd pointed it out and had pulled on a t-shirt without further comment.

Dean really, _really_ loved sleep. He did, but when he slept well, he woke up to full mental capacity in practically no time flat, even if his body didn’t. Often enough he'd been thankful for that ability, but hearing Sam's soft whuffling nearby, he realized that he probably could have slept for a while longer without any problems. He sighed and twisted himself back onto the mattress, then checked the time on the hotel's provided alarm clock. It read 7:58am.

Dean rolled his eyes and shifted himself onto his side, fetal position, and idly watched Sam sleep. It was less creepy than it sounded. Dean could judge what kind of dreams Sam was having just by watching him, and once or twice, that had saved him from getting clocked, shot, or stabbed when he tried to wake Sam up.

Today, it looked like Sam was sleeping peacefully, which was a nice change of pace. Sam, when he was dreaming happily, sprawled spread-eagled on the bed, head turned to face the door (a habit Dad had drilled into them both), with his right leg slightly bent and foot braced on the mattress. Most of the time, Sam slept in what Dean thought of as his bad-dream position, still flat on his back, but with his arms and legs tucked close against his body, almost as if he was doing that weird Internet thing, the plank. Sam only curled into the fetal position when he was injured.

Dean snorted softly to himself, taking care not to do it too loudly. He could write a book off of what he knew about Sam's body language. It probably wouldn't sell, but the point was that he _could,_ where so many other people had to guess at what some gesture meant.

Dad hadn't understood Sam, but a lot of the time, Dad hadn't _wanted_ to understand Sam. Dean had figured it was because, of the two of them, Sam looked more like Mom and maybe acted more like her too. With a four year old's fuzzy memory, few things were truly clear, but he did remember both Mom and Dad having had at least one doozy of a fight before Sam was born. In addition, he _had_ been able to go back in time, thanks to Castiel, and meet his mom on adult terms, and she really had acted a lot like Sam; she had questioned everything, gotten mad easily, and her eyes were nearly the same color. When he had met Mom (before she had helped make him, and that was a topic he planned on never thinking about again, _ever_ ), he had noticed her habit of looking directly at someone as if she was memorizing him or her, and Sam did the exact same thing. Knowing all that, it didn't take a genius to figure out why Dad could barely look Sam in the face, and later, looked at him as little as possible.

In the morning, too comfortable and content to worry about the direction his thoughts were taking, Dean felt sad that Dad had never gotten to know Sam the way he did, and wished that things had been different. He thought about how most kids were having birthday parties and pushing girls over in sandboxes when he, at that age, was learning how to take apart and clean pistols and had already seen at least one dead body. How Sam's care had been left more and more in his hands as Dad's obsession with the yellow-eyed demon who had so royally fucked up their lives grew, while other kids were playing with bicycles and running home after school. How, finally, Sam and Dad had somehow patched up their relationship, only for Dad to deal with the same bastard who had killed their mom, for Dean.

Like nothing else in the world, that thought brought him straight to full awareness, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to fight down the tears that always came with it. Fighting them came easier with the years of experience he'd had locking them down, but it didn't make it _easy._

A low groan from Sam had Dean's eyes flying open, and he blinked a few times to get the remaining water out of his eyes. Sam was waking up. Sam, unless he thought he was in direct danger or was having a really bad nightmare, never woke up immediately or as fully as Dean did. First was the battle with staying asleep, and it showed on his face with the scrunch of discomfort and whatever sounds he let go. Next, Sam would shift around on the bed, trying to get more comfortable so that he could fall back asleep; that was usually a lost cause. Finally, he'd open his eyes and spend a little while blinking and trying to figure out how to move his head. From there, he was okay to talk with, as long as Dean didn't expect answers within the next minute.

In the back of Dean's mind where he buried things he couldn’t deal with, he felt scared that his knowledge of Sam was as deep as it was because Dean couldn’t live without him. Having one or both of them dead a few given times had been proof of that.  True, they had gotten better, but that just wasn’t the point. He was equally terrified at the notion that, while _he_ couldn't live without Sam, _Sam_ had proven himself capable of living without Dean, as Sam’s Stanford decision had taught him.

Dean sighed and turned onto his back as Sam's eyes opened, so Sam couldn't accuse him of staring like a creeper. God knew that sometimes he _felt_ like one, but he didn't need Sam to say it to his face.

Another day was officially begun in a peaceful-type manner. Other morning occasions were of the “holy shit” variety (though less with the literal sense of holy as time went on), so Dean kept the quieter times under his belt to cherish and enjoy as they came. They were fewer and farther between, what with all the alarm-setting, nightmares (for both of them) and other disturbances.

“Time 'sit?” Sam slurred.

Dean turned back over, as if he too had been lying prone, to glance over at the clock. “It's about 8:30.”

“Mmm.” Sam blinked up at the ceiling a bit before he turned to face Dean, who saw with amusement that Sam's eyes were nearly squinted shut. It wasn't _that_ bright in here. “Why'd we sleep in?”

Dean shrugged. “Not like we had anywhere to be until later this afternoon. It's Saturday, and people who have nine-to-five jobs probably want to sleep in.”

“G'point,” Sam muttered. He knuckled one eye, apparently not aware of how much it made him look like a little kid. It made Dean want to smile with an odd combination of amusement and gut-wrenching nostalgia. “Breakfast?”

“Feeling like doughnuts,” Dean answered. “There any places to get them around here?”

Sam waved a hand at their battered laptop sitting on the nondescript desk. “You go check. Too comfy to move.”

Dean nodded slightly to himself. If Sam was starting to use complete sentences, it was a sure sign that he was on the way to full alertness. He swung himself off the mattress and stood, locking his hands far above his head and going up on his toes to maximize the stretch. His shirt rode up and his pants slid down when he did that, but it wasn't like Sam hadn't seen it all anyway. Yawning hard enough to nearly pop his jaw, Dean put his sleepwear to rights, booted up the laptop, and connected to the wi-fi network the hotel had provided. Dean sat down and then asked the search engine to find doughnut shops near the hotel.

“There's one called Sesame about ten minutes down the road,” he called to Sam. “Think you can be ready soon?”

“Huh?” Sam asked, sounding like he'd been slipping back into dreamland. Dean knew that, if he hadn't spoken, Sam likely _would_ have gone straight back to sleep. “Yeah. Sure. Gimme a few.”

“Up and at 'em, Sammy,” Dean said, going to the bathroom. “If you ain't up when I'm out of the bathroom, I'm putting a cold towel on your feet.”

The sounds of Sam frantically throwing off the covers and sitting up in bed made Dean smile as the door shut.

Dean didn't care that he looked like a bad television cliche. Nope, no sir, no problems here. He didn't care that he was dressed like a fed and eating a doughnut, especially when the doughnut in question was as damn tasty as this one. If Sam's chipmunk-puffy cheeks were anything to go by, he probably agreed with Dean's humble assessment. If he didn't, Dean would cheerfully eat Sam's doughnut, even if it _had_ just been in contact with his brother's mouth.

By mutual agreement, they bought some to snack on later, and a dozen for tomorrow's breakfast. Really, just for whenever they needed a doughnut. Dean had the feeling that he, at least, would need at least one every other hour. Possibly _on_ the hour.

“Three interviews before lunch,” Sam said, reading out of his little notebook. They had called to make the appointments today before they had gotten ready for bed last night. 

“Carol, some guy named Juan, and another woman named Sarah.”

“Library in Hillsdale first, right?” Dean asked.

“Yeah.” Sam consulted the notebook again. “Since we have enough to try and guesstimate a pattern, we'll just try and keep each one down to half an hour each.”

Dean finished his doughnut, licking his fingers to get every last trace of the delicious sugar. “From what the 'net said, that's not too far from here, and I've got the directions.” He patted the breast pocket of his trench coat. “Ready when you are.”

Sam finished his own food, also licking his fingers. He looked sadly at the box and small bag of fried goodness that Dean was carrying and sighed, then pocketed his notebook. “Yeah, let's go.”

Dean almost gave in and handed Sam another, but he knew full well that it'd trigger a cycle of eating that would result both in being late _and_ having to get another dozen. Dean was going to deny it to the grave, but it was starting to get harder to keep the pounds off his six-pack, and he didn't want Sam poking fun at him, or worse, poking his belly and calling him an old man.

“Old man” was and always would be Bobby, never mind Dad. Sure, Dean loved Bobby, but it didn't mean that he wanted to _look_ like him before he bit the dust.

After they were both in the car (Dean made damn sure the doughnuts were in the back seat, in case Sam got ideas), they made good time down some long, somewhat twisty stretch of road until they got to what Dean could only call a bottleneck area. A school located on the right side of the street had all the “slow children” signs up, flashing lights and all, and naturally there was a delay as they inched toward the traffic light where they needed to make a left.

Dean privately wondered about the signs. He knew his grammar wasn't exactly the best, but he thought the signs should say “slow _for_ children” instead of “slow children.” The second one was just begging for someone to make a joke about the kids' brains.

After finally getting to turn, they parked quickly and made their way inside to an meeting room. Their first interviewee, Carol, was waiting there quietly. A woman of some weight and indeterminate age, she also had on some of the worst makeup Dean had ever seen on anyone's face, and she _reeked_ of cigarettes from both from her skin and the colorful clothes Dean was coming to associate as some Portland-type badge of pride. Dean made sure the air-conditioning vent in the library blew on her to get the stink away from them.

Sam took the lead this time, glancing once at Dean for confirmation before he started. Dean figured that Sam had seen that his enthusiasm for interviewing her had taken a drastic turn for the worse.  Dean quietly wrote the answers down as Carol spoke, grateful at least that she wasn't trying to flirt like that weird blond from last night (though there were some definite signs of interest), even if some of her answers kept coming from songs he was unfamiliar with and she struck odd poses with some of her replies. She, like Jim, had apparently been taken from a job she had been working, right when she had clocked out for the day.

“And then that teenager appeared,” Carol explained, waving thick, ring-covered fingers in the air.  The heavy cigarette smell blew toward Dean and Sam with her movement, and Dean had to keep himself from coughing.  “Dressed right outta the Dark Ages, or something. Her voice was the thickest Scottish accent ever!”

“You sure it wasn't Irish?” Dean asked half-sarcastically, reminded yet again of the idiot from last night.

“No, Scottish,” she replied firmly, and Dean let out a quiet sigh of relief. “Weird, since she kept asking me stuff about my life, my former relationships, shit like that.”

“And how would asking about your life be considered odd?” Sam asked politely, disguising a wrinkled nose. Dean could tell from the careful way he positioned his body that he was bored, trying not to breathe too much and checking the time, to make sure they wouldn't be late for their next interview.

“I don't talk about my life much.” Carol shrugged, and put her hands on the table. “Except on Facebook, my blogs, and to the friends I see at the clubs on a regular basis.  I didn't feel bad answering her, but I got the feeling that she didn't get the answers she wanted. Either way, she didn't hurt me. I woke up in my bed the next morning and everything.”

Sam looked like he wanted to leap out of his seat, which Dean took as a sign that they needed to get her out soon, if not immediately, but Dean decided to ask one last question; “what do you mean, 'the answers she wanted?'”

“She looked like she was waiting for me to get something,” Carol said, not at all fazed by the fact that Dean had barely spoken the entire time. “I don't know what there is to get. It's not like my life's an open book, super messed up or anything.”

Almost at the same time, Dean and Sam stood up, thanked her, made their apologies, shook her hand and left. Dean noted that Carol sat back down and unloaded her bag once they were out, but he was too occupied with breathing clean air to honestly give a damn.

“Next person's Juan, who works at some long-term care pharmacy in Tigard,” Sam said, getting his notebook out. Dean went straight for the exit to the library and got into the car, Sam right behind him and tapping on his phone. “It's not far from here, but the freeway entrance we'll need, if my phone's right, isn't close.”

“Guide me,” Dean said. “Now we've definitely got a pattern. Things come in threes, right?”

“Seems that way, at least,” Sam said indifferently. “Go back the way we came a bit, and we'll hop on the 217 from there. It should dump us near where we're going.”

The 217 took them to the I-5, and from there, they easily found the pharmacy they needed, though it certainly wasn't any kind Dean was familiar with. Pharmacies to him were either those tiny mom an'pop stores that still had those little old men in white coats behind the counter, or bigger places like Walgreens that sold groceries and other useful stuff. This place seemed to cater to a different kind of pharmaceutical need. Sam quietly read off the fact that this particular place shipped medications to nursing homes and other similar outfits, and so it was highly unlikely they could add this to their list of possible off-the-record resources.

It almost seemed inevitable, but the Juan guy was not only late, but seemed to follow the same personality pattern that their first interview of the morning, Carol, had; he had been taken and asked about his life, but he reported that the girl had seemed disappointed with him somehow. Naturally, Juan couldn't quite see how, but unlike Carol, he seemed to have thought a lot more about what had been said.

“The chiquita wished me well before I fell asleep, and everything turned out fine,” Juan concluded. “Some of what she said made real sense, y'know? I didn't much like that small black room, but hey, I came out of it determined to get me all healthy and shit.” He gestured down at himself, and Dean did see that he had passed the “husky” body type a while back. “Gotta stay around for my kids and wife. Real nice little lady, though kinda weird.”

“Weird aside from the whole kidnapping thing?” Sam interjected.

“Well, she brought my meds with me when I was taken,” Juan said, looking confused. “I got diabetes and stuff, and can't go without them too long. That was all there. How could she know?”

Dean and Sam made the appropriate noises, thanked Juan, and left. They got back into the Impala, but Dean didn't start the engine. The weather was cool enough to be pleasant and it wasn't raining, so he didn't feel bad rolling down a window and sitting without the engine running. He could feel Sam looking at him oddly, but he was too busy thinking to care.

“A ghost, or whatever, kidnapping people and talking to them about their lives,” he finally muttered to Sam. “Where in the _hell_ does that make any kind of sense?”

“It really doesn't,” Sam shrugged. “The victims are starting to show a bit of a pattern though.”

“They don't all have their lives together,” Dean stated, and turned his head in time to see Sam nodding.

“Some of them are pretty into themselves and hurting their significant others and loved ones,” Sam added. “I'm not sure there's enough for any kind of statistical accuracy, but--”

“--I'm pretty sure we can leave off the fancy science stuff and trust our guts in this case,” Dean interjected, not in the mood for one of Sam's long-winded speeches about “analyzation” and other dirty-sounding words. It annoyed him more often than not that Sam had had the opportunity to get more of an education than Dean. Dean personally wouldn't have minded going to college, but that wasn't how things had turned out, and a bigger part of him than Dean liked to admit was pissed off that Sam had managed to do it, even if he'd driven a spike through their family at the same time.

“Sure,” Sam said, sounding a little like he was humoring Dean, but Dean chose not to call him on it. “We'll go see this Sarah person, and see if she's of the same cut as the others. It's probably better if we don't try to go into the interview without any form of expectation.”

An hour later, however, Dean proved both his and Sam's theories correct. Sarah was a pleasant enough person, but talking to her proved problematic, mostly because she was hard of hearing (she had warned them of this the second they walked in the door) and apparently didn't think that wearing her hearing aids was a good idea.  A lot of the time they spent with her was spent shouting.  In addition, she had trouble seeing that her refusal to put in her aids was giving Sam and Dean trouble with talking to her, and kept idly waving a hand and saying that her “boyfriend of the week understood her just fine, so they should be able to as well.”

It took some doing, but eventually, Dean got out of her the reason the ghost was able to talk to her. The ghost had apparently known sign language, which wasn't a skill either Sam or Dean had, so they were stuck with pen, paper and shouting.  Eventually, they resorted to just shouting at her, since she ignored whatever scribbled-on paper either Dean or Sam held near her face.

Dean stalked out of Sarah's apartment with a sense of irritation and without his voice.

“I think we should research the rest of today and tomorrow,” Sam husked. “We don't have any more people to talk to today.”

Dean chuckled without a sound. Neither of them were going to be able to interview anyone tomorrow anyway. “Good idea,” he whispered back. “How do you feel about lunch?”

Sam just nodded, but didn't suggest a place. Considering how hoarse the both of them were, Dean wasn't surprised in the slightest.

Lunch at a fairly respectable burger joint and two hot toddies apiece at the hotel later, Dean felt like he could almost speak normally again. Or maybe it was the Jack Daniels talking. No, chances were it was _definitely_ the Jack talking. He felt fairly justified in putting in a bit more booze than hot water in his cup, even if the water had done more to soothe his throat. 

Sam was tap-tap-tapping away on the computer, trying to put what their three people said today with what their other people had said, and he wasn't having much luck. None of the people involved were connected in any way, shape or form. With the exception of the Juan guy and the fake-Jim Sam had interviewed downtown, none of the people had even worked in the same field. Working in pharmacy didn't automatically mean that the people knew each other, as Dean and Sam had discovered; the pharmacies involved didn't talk to each other, and from what Sam had said, Jim hadn't seemed like the kind of person Juan would want to hang out with anyway.

Being stuck at square one wasn't sitting very well with Dean, and if he could hear hidden anger in the way Sam's fingers were hitting the keys, chances are it wasn't making Sammy very happy either.

The whiskey was muddling things a bit for Dean, but he was diligently attempting to look through Dad's journal, as well as one of their carefully kept books on ghost-lore in order to find a connection, while Sam was using the Internet to see if this was some new sort of phenomenon. So far, neither of them were having much luck, but at least they were _trying._ Anything was better than staring at the wall trying to brainstorm something from nothing.

What was pissing Dean off the most was that this ghost, beyond any other ghost they'd encountered either personally or through another person, if it even _was_ a ghost, was _not_ following standard operating procedure. The ghost wasn't threatening anyone, killing anyone, or doing anything to harm anyone (Dean chose to ignore the fact that said ghost was kidnapping people, since they returned generally unharmed). All it was doing was asking questions, and to seal the deal, it wasn't wearing clothing that came anywhere near what a modern ghost, or one that had at least died within the last fifty years, would wear. Unless their elusive little poltergeist was some kind of player at a Renaissance fair, she hadn't died recently. It didn't seem possible for a ghost to retain sanity for long enough to do this, and both Sam and Dean had seen ghosts lose their shit a lot faster than this little lady.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. The booze was making his mind wander off in interesting directions, and he wasn't interested in letting it, so he did his best to focus on the tape-bound scrapbook that was his dad's journal.

How in the hell could this ghost have managed to keep herself together long enough to do this? By this point, Dean honestly had no idea, and from the looks of it, Dad had never encountered anything like her before either. Dean had been on several of the hunts his dad had documented, all with ghosts that somehow seemed more sane than normal. If being a ghost could be considered normal. Dean somehow doubted that.

If past experiences with ghosts were anything to go by, the stronger ones managed to maintain their sanity and human personalities longer than the weak ones, which only made sense to Dean. The stronger ones could adapt to the situation, strange as it was, and most often, it was due to the ghost in question having had some sort of focus before dying. The focus could be either a person, an item or a location, and the strength of attachment was entirely due to how the ghost felt before he or she died. None of what Dad had written down concerned a ghost occupied with other peoples' feelings, much less a ghost that hopped around a town of this size kidnapping people with no real connection to each other, similarities in life issues being outside what Dean considered a true similarity. 

He had learned through Dad, and then through his own experiences, that there wasn't a ghost who remained sane for long periods of time without some form of outside intervention, and so far, Dean hadn't found it, and since he could hear Sam grumbling in increasingly louder (but still quiet; Sam hadn't added as much whiskey to his toddies as Dean had) tones, it was a safe bet that Sam hadn't found one either.

Dean figured that his misery could use some company, so he called out, “haven't found anything?”

“Not a damn thing,” Sam admitted, running a hand through his hair and drinking from his cup. Dean idly remembered that Sam had always been a slow drinker. “I haven't run across anything in the hunter database that follows what we're finding here, and nothing on the internet really corroborates it either.”

“We at least know this chick's a ghost of some kind,” Dean pointed out, trying not to sound as sarcastic as he felt. “Now all we need to do is find her bones and cremate them.”

“If we knew where they were or who she was, yeah, this would be so _easy.”_ Sam rolled his eyes. “Not one of the victims we've interviewed caught her name, and not one who asked got an answer.  None of them could even really describe her face.”

“If we're thinking that this ghost really is as old as she sounds,” Dean said slowly, an idea starting to form, “do you think someone's been helping her keep her shit?”

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, then looked thoughtful. Dean liked that look. It meant that brain of Sam's was busy taking his question seriously, not looking for ways to poke holes in Dean's theories. And boy, this time Dean had one hell of a theory.

“Maybe,” Sam said finally. “But then we're back at the start. Who would be helping her keep it all together, and for this damn long, and then why?”

“I'm thinking we're looking for some kind of witch or deity,” Dean said with a small smile, pleased that Sam hadn't rejected his idea out of hand. “If she's old, like, _really_ flippin' old, then there's no way she could have held on this long by herself--”

“And humans don't last that long.” Sam finished Dean's thought for him. “So it's gotta be someone who _can_ live a long time!”

Dean grinned triumphantly, and let himself slide down into the relatively more comfortable depths of his pillow-nest and mattress. “So we start trying to track down some of our less mortal contacts and see if any of them are willing to lend us a hand?”

Sam made a face. “I'm not sure any of them are still talking to us after we ganked their mother.”

“She was a total bitch,” Dean complained. “You'd think they'd _thank_ us for not letting them all become mindless drones in her army.”

Sam just shrugged, and Dean had to silently agree with him. It wasn't as though hunters and monsters (or “non-human beings” if he was, as Sam put it, “being PC”) got along well even on a more casual basis, and the few who did manage it weren't exactly high on the popularity scale with their fellow creatures. Most of them only communicated through the internet, apparently having had enough time to become untraceable without ever coming into contact with someone who had the ability to kill them. Dean could definitely admire that brand of paranoia.

“Still, send out a general question regarding ghosts,” Dean said, knowing it was futile but wanting to try it anyway. He doubted anyone but the people involved knew what the situation really was, but maybe someone could shed a little light. “They'll wonder why we're asking newbie hunter questions, but maybe they’ll know something we don't.”

“Got it,” Sam said, clicking and typing on the computer with his usual speed. Dean didn't consider himself a slacker in the typing department when he was on the computer, but not for the first time, he wondered how Sam, whose hands were a bit bigger than his, could type so damn _fast._

“Done.” Sam closed the laptop with a sigh, then looked toward the clock that sat between their beds. “Holy shit, is it really six in the evening?”

“Guess so,” Dean replied after he half-heartedly sat up to take his own look at the time. “Time flies when we've got nothing.”

Sam nodded. “Think I'll take a bit of a walk and try to think a bit more,” he said, reaching for his regular coat. Sam had taken off the fed outfit as soon as they had finished with their last interview, and Dean had followed suit. Sam now wore a dark green and black flannel shirt, unbuttoned, over a lighter green t-shirt and his jacket was yet another shade of green. His blue jeans hung off him as usual, and Dean watched him put on socks and tennis shoes. “I'll be back in about an hour.”

Dean waved as his reply, and Sam left, quietly shutting the door behind him. Dean didn't move from his deep slouch among the pillows, but he did stare at the door for a few minutes.

Sam, he noted, was taking more and more opportunities to get out of Dean's immediate company. Like always, he gave a time frame, since neither of them were strangers to random kidnappings. The time limit was a check on their safety; if one of them gave a time and then didn't show up ten minutes before or after it, it was an automatic signal to come looking. Still, Sam took every way he could to get out of Dean's sight for an hour here or there, not counting times when they were separated for casework.

Dean could understand the need for privacy; they _did_ live in each others' pockets and did make each other crazy every so often, but he never got tired of having Sam around, except when he was angry. He wondered if Sam got tired of being around him and needed the break.

Shaking his head, Dean got out of bed with a sigh and went to the sleeping computer. If he was going to be here by himself, then he was going to be _useful._

He took his notebook out of his suit’s jacket pocket and found his notes on the people he had interviewed. Ensuring that none of them had criminal backgrounds would help make sure they had the actual facts straight, and that other factors weren't messing with how they were seeing things.

Waiting for the software in his computer to do its thing and hack into federal databases took some time, which let Dean mull over Sam's need for space. Sam had already proven himself capable of doing things on his own, and Dean didn't begrudge him that; he _wanted_ Sam to be able to stand on his own two feet. It would help keep him alive if he found himself alone. It didn't mean Dean was at all happy about the way Sam seemed to be distancing himself.

Dean was aware that he wasn't the easiest person to get along with. Having spent time among military personnel while Sam was at Stanford, Dean could see how similar he was to them. He was regimented to a fault on pretty much everything, from gun maintenance to what kind of soap he liked. Sam definitely was as disciplined about weapon upkeep as Dean, but he didn't think that Sam did it because he _needed_ to do it, not on the same level that Dean did. Dean needed his patterns and set behaviors. Dean needed to have things to occupy himself so he didn't think too much, like he was now, because thinking about things just made him more depressed than he actually was.

Not that he was unhappy, but he didn't like picking at scabs, physically or mentally.

Dean sighed. Was he being unfair to Sam by insisting that they do everything together on this trip? He didn't want to make Sam stay with him _all_ the time. They were both getting better at dividing the labor and legwork between them. On the job, they were as flawless as any other hunter could expect. 

Being thrown into walls wasn't a failure, but a setback, after all. It didn't _feel_ like a setback, but it meant they were still alive to feel pain, which was a good thing.

But after all the teamwork, actual hunting, and cleaning up happened, Sam nearly completely withdrew into his own head and didn't talk as much as he used to, whether about bugging Dean about driving the car (“aren't you getting tired by now, Dean? It's been five hours!”), trying some new kind of food, or questioning him about Dad when he thought Dean was too out of it to notice.

The silence was kind of bothering him, so Dean was trying to find a way to bring the usual Sammy back into the fold. He wasn't quite up to par with the whole letting Sam take the wheel more often thing, but he was trying new foods. The Indian had been pretty damn good, even if food that hot gave him heartburn, and the German food the other day had been awesome. When Sam had had the toxic gas-inducing fish when they had first arrived, Dean had gone for a gyro instead of pizza. Dean had the feeling that Sam had seen and liked the small changes Dean was trying out, but it hadn't gotten him to open up much.

Dean wasn't big on talking. He tried, for the sake of his relationship with the only family he had left, but at times like these, he knew damn well that Dad, even when he meant the best for him, had messed him up royally in his ability to communicate with the rest of the world.

For a while, his brand of normal talk had worked. When he and Sammy were growing up together, Dad had pounded it into both their heads that family were the only people you could trust, and since they hadn't had anyone but each other, Dean and Sam couldn't have kept from being close if they'd tried. Being each others' only constants had a way of ensuring the brotherly bond more than just living together in the same house with the same parents might have. Other sets of siblings Dean had met over the years hadn't seemed to measure up to the kind of closeness he and Sam had enjoyed, but theirs was a special set of circumstances.

Of course, like everything else in Dean's life, that kind of thing hadn't been meant to last. Sam had gone off by himself to college, leaving Dean alone to face their pissed-off Dad, and they literally hadn't spoken again until the day Dean had broken into the apartment Sam had shared with Jessica, to ask for his help. If Dean thought about it, they had never fully talked out what had made Dean come to get Sam in the first place, or about _why_ Sam had chosen to do what he did, or how he had managed it without tipping anyone off. Hell, when Dad had disappeared for as long as he had, the only thought in Dean's head _hadn't_ been “go find Dad;” Dean had known that Dad, with very few exceptions, could have handled whatever came at him. The thought had been “make sure Sam was safe.” Dad going missing had just been the excuse he had needed to get back with his brother.

There might be more to this whole talking thing than Dean thought, if he could figure out a way to bring up a decade-old question without getting yelled at or given the permanent silent treatment.

The computer dinged at him, jarring him out of his increasingly strange thoughts.  Dean looked at the screen, and the results showing all the names he put in confirmed his suspicions. None of the people had any kind of hard criminal record, save for a few small misdemeanors. Dean knew that it didn't necessarily make people less trustworthy, so the kidnappings probably weren’t attempts for attention, or get-out-of-work-free cards. In addition, while the stories frequently didn't match up detail-for-detail, the things that _did_ gel together for everyone hadn’t been in the newspapers.

Dean made a mental note to let Sam know about what he had found, then stretched his arms over his head. Something in his back popped, and he groaned with pleasure as it loosened up. He checked the time and huffed out a laugh. Small wonder he was stiff, if he'd really been sitting in a not-so-comfy chair for an hour staring at a computer screen. Hopefully, this would teach him not to think deep, disturbing thoughts while sitting on a wooden chair. He stood up with a wince, rubbing his ass with one hand; it had lost feeling while he had been thinking.

The door creaked open at that moment, and Dean tensed and turned to face it, his free hand going to a holdout knife in one pocket while the other one kept on doing what it was doing. If it wasn't Sam, he would have a difficult time fighting with his butt numbed, so there was no point in stopping.

Sam entered the room, tossing his keys negligently next to the laptop on the table and staring at Dean like he had never seen him before. “Something I need to know about?” He pointed with his chin to the hand on Dean's ass.

For the first time in a long time, Dean felt his cheeks warming with a faint blush. “It's just numb.”

“Uh huh,” Sam said, sounding unconvinced. “You just keep telling yourself that.”

Dean opened his mouth to retort, but paused, because what was going to come out would only dig himself a deeper hole. He shook his head. “Right, forget it,” he said instead. “None of the vics have a criminal record or anything that would say they were making it up.”

Sam nodded. “Good to know.” He untied his shoes, removed them, then threw them on the bed. “By the way, nice redirect.”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, thanks. I thought so too.”

“I figured.” Sam had the nerve to _smirk_ at him. Dean was going to get back at him. Somehow. As soon as he could figure out a retort.

The problem with knowing each other in the ways they did was that Dean knew that Sam knew there wouldn't be a response. For now, Dean found he was okay with that.


	6. One Day Prior

**Chapter Five: One Day Prior**

_“Should I stay or should I go now?  
If I go it will be trouble,  
And if I stay it will be double.  
So come on and let me know!”_  
The Clash, “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”

Sam was fully aware that he should be more focused on the case. However, the case was at a dead end, since neither Dean nor Sam had come across any information that would give them clearer insight into how someone was controlling a ghost that was, quite possibly, both sane and centuries old. Dean himself was out procuring their lunch, since all of their interviews had been conducted via phone today. Fortunately, their voices had both come back fully after a night's rest. However, the additional interviews only added more (confusion) confirmation to the theory they had, which led Sam straight back to trying to figure out how, who, and what was controlling what almost certainly had to be a ghost.

It was easier to think about what was going on with Dean. At least _Dean_ was a mystery he could figure out sooner rather than later. After all, Dean wasn't nearly as hard to read as he liked to think he was.

Sam _knew_ Dean in a way completely unlike how he knew other people. It wasn't strictly accurate to compare it to any romantic relationship he had ever had, but the closest analog was how Sam and Jessica had seemed to click, without the sex part. Sam could _definitely_ go the rest of his life without knowing about the sex part.

Sam vigorously shook his head, his hair softly whipping his face with the motion, hoping it would get the images out of his head. He hated his brain sometimes.

Anyway, the way he knew Dean was like how he had known Jessica. He had somehow managed to create a catalog in his head of every movement, every expression, and every vocal nuance, so that he had an idea of what they were thinking before they even said a word. 

He sighed; even after all this time, he wasn't able to think of Jessica without feeling grief at her loss, but he was also thankful that he had been able to love her for the time he had. It had occurred to him more than once that he had been able to know Jessica in that intimate way... because of _Dean._ It was a gift and a curse.

So, the reading he was getting off Dean was, for lack of a better term, _off_ somehow. He kept opening and closing his mouth when Sam thought that he would say something, kept trying new foods (which was something of a sore point with Sam), and was giving him space instead of being as clingy as he normally was.

It was odd to think of a guy as clingy, but Dean managed it without resembling any of the less appropriate women Sam had dated. If Sam wanted to go somewhere, he usually had to convince Dean to stay behind; he lost more than half of those arguments. If he _won_ and got to go somewhere all by his lonesome, he had to check back in at set intervals. Granted, they _both_ had to do that because things liked kidnapping them, but it seemed more like Dean got more of what _he_ wanted more often than _Sam_ did.

But then, Dean was letting him go off by himself. Dean was doing more things that _Sam_ might have wanted to do, without the discussions (arguments) that came with them. It made Sam suspicious about Dean having self-sacrificing motives again. Nothing currently in their lives called for the ultimate price, and granted, they could die at any time without any higher power involved (and God knew there had been a _lot_ involved at given points in time), but neither of them were about to die. Unless someone else was involved. Maybe Dean was seeing something in this case that Sam just....wasn't.

Sam shook his head again. That couldn't possibly be it; none of the victims had reported violence, one of the few common themes that had allowed them to weed out the attention-seekers from who was actually involved. Dean wasn't giving off that weird vibe he did when he was hiding something from Sam, and Sam _always_ knew when Dean was lying. During moments when he was brutally honest with himself, Sam was aware that he was a better liar than Dean was, because Sam had _had_ to be better at it. There wouldn't have been a way to escape from the family business and go to college if he wore his emotions and thoughts on his sleeve the way Dean did.

Granted, Sam figured he was probably the only person left on Earth who could recognize when Dean was keeping something to himself, but the signs Dean gave off when he was carrying a secret were like a neon sign in a dark city to him. Anyone else (particularly women) figured that “broody silence” was Dean's natural state. Which it was. To people who didn't know him like Sam did.

So, fine, Dean was keeping something to himself, but damned if Sam could figure out what it _was._

Idly, he got up and started to pace, forcing his thoughts back to the case. Unless someone had been kidnapped while both Sam and Dean had been on the phone, they had managed to interview every single person the ghost-entity had kidnapped. None of them had gotten her name, and the best description they had from the victims’ testimonies was that the ghost was; (1) in her teens, (2) spoke with a Scottish accent, and (3) dressed like someone straight out of the Dark Ages. Sam ticked off the points on his hand, looked at it he paced, and lowered it in disgust. Those three facts would be useful in tracking her remains and ganking her if they just had _something else_ to go on.

It was also noteworthy, but not useful in the field of search, that she had seemed interested in how each of the people she had kidnapped lived. There had been questions about the “modern world's conveniences,” as one person had put it, and it went beyond saying that she had wanted to know about the peoples' lives. Most people came out of their confinement with her happier and able to make life changes that benefited them. Sam had noticed that the denser ones hadn't quite gotten the point, and were no better off than before. Probably because they had been dumber, but Sam digressed.

If someone _was_ controlling this young-looking ghost-thing, could that someone have bad intentions? It didn't necessarily rule out a witch being in control. Both Sam and Dean had met some rather kind witches in their lives as hunters; Sam figured that witches weren't inherently cruel, but some of them definitely became so. Other than the powers, witches of either gender were as human as Sam and Dean were, and were subject to human motives.

Not one of the victims had reported the ghost trying to take anything off them that could have been used in a spell, such as hair or fingernail clippings. The ghost hadn't come near them at all, though naturally, the victims couldn't account for the time each of them had spent unconscious before finding themselves in that room. No one had reported the ghost trying to touch them, much less come near enough to take someone's personal stuff. Reluctantly, Sam had to rule out a witch being the person in control. Even if the witch was someone Sam might not have minded grabbing a beer with, he couldn't factor in how the entire situation would work for a witch's benefit.

If it wasn't a witch, Sam wondered if the person in control could have been a human. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time a regular Joe or Jill off the corner had gotten hold of supernatural mojo and corralled a ghost into his or her service. However, that put the situation in roughly the same camp as Sam had speculated with the witches; what would be in it for some regular person in using a ghost to play temporary shrink to a whole bunch of people who, with some exceptions, might have figured out where their lives were going wrong without the help? Most regular people could do that just by talking. Sam mentally crossed regular humans off his 'whodunit' list as well.

Unfortunately, that left the only other possibility of a person behind the curtain (to borrow a phrase) as some form of deity. Much like how Dean hated most humans, Sam hated deities. With very few exceptions, it was _impossible_ to guess motive, and Sam had seen weirder situations involving immortals with super-powers. He _still_ winced when he thought of the truth-goddess, and he hadn’t even had his soul at the time. Come to think of it, he winced whenever he was reminded of walking around without said soul, so perhaps that wasn't quite the best example. Sam shrugged to himself, finally getting tired of pacing and flopped onto his bed to stare at the ceiling. 

Fine, so unless something else came to light, Sam was forced to conclude that it had to be some kind of deity. But what kind of deity would control a ghost, much less have that ghost help improve lives? To Sam, it seemed like too much effort to use a proxy to do the work for him like that, but hey, deities, unpredictability, and all the things Sam loathed about them. It made sense, in a completely nonsensical way.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. He hated it when he thought like that.

The key in the lock and a staccato tapping to the rhythm of Black Sabbath's “Iron Man” confirmed that it was Dean at the door, so Sam didn't bother to stop his examination of the ceiling cracks. A moment later, the door opened and Dean walked in carrying two unassuming, tube-shaped plastic bags. They looked like...

“Dude, you went to _Subway?_ ” Sam was incredulous.

“They had a pretty badass-looking chicken sandwich,” Dean replied, obviously unashamed of his choice. “Might as well eat something different.”

Sam couldn't find a response, but stared at Dean, still surprised. Dean never passed up a chance to avoid eating something healthy. Granted, Sam was unconvinced of what health value a fast-food sub sandwich chain actually had, but seriously, _Subway?_ The restaurant that Dean made fun of for hours after Sam got a sub from there instead of choosing some local diner?

Sam was convinced now. Someone had kidnapped Dean and replaced him with one of those green men from outer space.

“Dude, you _hate_ Subway,” Sam pointed out.

“I don't _hate_ it,” Dean calmly replied, somehow exuding innocence and smugness at the same time. Sam felt like punching him in the face whenever he got that expression. “I just think it's not my thing.”

“You're really going to eat it,” Sam stated flatly, making sure Dean could hear the lack of a question mark in his voice.

In answer, Dean sat at the small table, moved the laptop, unwrapped one of the sandwiches (Sam noted in passing that Dean had gotten a footlong), and bit into it with enthusiasm. Sam looked at the sandwich Dean chewed, and noted wryly that, no matter his temporary insanity in choosing somewhere reasonably healthy to eat, Dean had managed to avoid putting any sort of green food into the sandwich or his body. 

Okay, so maybe Dean hadn't been replaced by a pod person. It didn't stop being weird.

“Got you turkey with all the rabbit stuff,” Dean said, his mouth partially full. He pointed to the still wrapped sandwich with his chin.

“Thanks.” Sam cautiously stood up, grabbed a water bottle from their supply stash, and removed his own footlong sub, relieved to note that, while Dean _had_ included all the “rabbit stuff”' he liked, he had forgone the olives.  He dryly saluted Dean with his sandwich and dug in, enjoying the bite of mustard and pepper-jack cheese in his mouth.

Sam definitely liked a burger as much as the next person, but a person could only eat like that for so long before one's body rebelled. In Sam's case, it had rebelled a year or so into his return to the family business. He had never told Dean about it, but he didn't want to spend that much time in the bathroom _ever again._ It had been around that time when he had decided that it wouldn't hurt him to keep track of what he ate, and to make sure he had some fiber every so often.

It was, literally, food for thought. The majority of the hunters Sam and Dean had met (themselves included) had never really enjoyed normal lives or schedules. The few hunters who had permanent residences, like Bobby had had, drank most of their calories from colored glass bottles with increasingly higher proofs. The ones who could still hunt or who hadn't found a place to settle down weren't exactly known for their culinary abilities either. Finding cheap places to eat was a talent all hunters had, and there was a place on the hunter database that actually listed cities and the places where other hunters had eaten. Even considering the sheer crap that most hunters ate, even fewer actually enjoyed regular meals.

Sam had never thought of it this way when he had been growing up, but he and Dean were damned lucky to have had their three square meals a day. Bobby had told them stories about how, when he and Rufus had been on the road, more than half the time their one meal of the day would be crappy diner fare, supplemented by beers and candy bars. It was no wonder that neither of them had looked or felt their best in years by the time Sam met them on adult footing.

The challenge he faced now was getting Dean to realize that. The jerk had apparently inherited good digestion from _someone,_ since Dad sure as hell hadn't had it, and it didn't seem to matter what he ate in the short term. As long as they were on the hunt, Sam was willing to swear that Dean didn't need to use the bathroom for longer than it took him to shower and shave, but the second they were done...

Sam took another bite of his sandwich, and thought mutinously that it was a damn good thing Dean had gotten all those air fresheners, because he would _definitely_ need them by the time this hunt was through. If it even was a hunt.

Wasn't...a hunt...

Sam tried to say “Dean,” but with the mouthful of sandwich he had, it came out as a very muffled grunt. He chewed a bit and swallowed, then took a swig of water. “Dean,” he tried again, with better success.

Dean just waved him on, still chewing.

“What if this isn't a hunt?”

Dean raised an eyebrow on him, chewed some more, and tucked what he had left into a cheek so he could talk. “What d'you mean?”

“We've both been getting an off feeling about this particular hunt, right?” Sam felt like he was vibrating in his seat with the strength of this random epiphany.

Swallowing, Dean nodded.

“But we haven't been able to find any conclusive evidence that anyone is being hurt, or tormented, or that this ghost is anyone we can track down?”

Dean nodded again.

“So how do we even know that we're _hunting_ this ghost?”

Dean started to raise his sandwich back to his mouth, paused, set it down, then picked it back up. He stared at Sam and opened his mouth, then wiped his hands on a napkin, interlaced his fingers, and rested his chin atop them. Slowly, he said, “that did not occur to me.”

“There's not much evidence that I'm right.” Sam played his devil's advocate card. “I just came up with it, but it seems _right._ Nothing about this entire situation is anything like what we've encountered before. We've had traps set for us, specifically--” Sam waved at Dean and himself to emphasize the point--”but this is too general. It's impossible to track us, thanks to these bone-tattoos Cas gave us and all the hex-bags we carry around, so whoever it is probably has no idea _we're_ the ones here.”

“So, if it _is_ something designed to bring hunters around to investigate, whoever's involved probably doesn't care who they catch,” Dean mused, staring across the table at Sam's sandwich, which Sam still held in one hand. “People getting kidnapped by a ghost is a sure-fire way to get a hunter to come sniffing around.”

“And in that way, all that would have to go down would be to create the _illusion_ of a ghost,” Sam concluded. For the first time since they got here, he felt like he was going somewhere with this case.

“I'll buy into that theory, Sammy,” Dean said. “Makes more damn sense than what we've been seeing. We're still going to have to figure out how they're doing it, and more, _why.”_

Sam nodded. Dean seemed amenable to Sam's way of thinking, which was yet another tally mark beneath the scorecard of Dean's odd behavior, but it wasn't as if they had had anything else to go by. Dean, as Sam damn well knew, wasn't stupid, no matter the act he sometimes put on, so it was entirely possible that he'd been thinking the same theory over himself and Sam had just happened to voice it.  For them, having the same idea at the same time had been known to happen. It was part of why they worked so well together.

Sam just wished that their simpatico would last beyond the job, like it had when they were kids.

“So, now we look for witches or something?” Dean sounded skeptical, but not the 'unbelieving' kind that kept him from researching; it was more the 'this situation is fucked up beyond all reason' kind that let him do what he had to do. Sam had no idea how he knew this, except for the fact that he could somehow hear the nuanced difference in how Dean phrased the question. Also, Dean's eyebrows stayed level; that was a definite plus. It was when they started moving that Sam was in for a logistical fight.

“Or something,” Sam sighed, wondering what it would be like to be able to take Dean's words at face value for once. “We're back at square one, except now the chances of us finding someone who's at fault for this are higher than looking for some random teenage girl's bones in a city this size.”

“I'll get started pulling up that weather pattern tracker Ash made us way back when if you start calling some of the people we've interviewed and asked if any unusual people were hanging around recently,” Dean offered.

Normally, the division of labor would have Sam doing the computer work, but Dean had decided to do it instead. That uneasy feeling Sam was experiencing grew. Dean _resisted_ change; he didn't invite it. He had never liked using technology to do his legwork, so seeing him volunteer for the part of the job he hated most was odd.

“Are you _feeling_ okay?”

Dean looked up from the sandwich he had picked up again. “Huh?”

Sam, at that moment, _really_ wished that question hadn't come leaping out of his mouth, but there wasn't a point in taking it back now. “You're changing things up a bit, Dean,” he said, trying to keep the accusation in his voice to a minimum. Dean wasn't doing anything _wrong,_ after all; he was just doing things differently.

Sam fully expected Dean to get huffy and defensive after that, but instead, Dean just looked thoughtful. He even ate a bite of his sandwich before he bothered to reply. 

“Yeah, I guess I am,” he said slowly, looking across the table to meet Sam's eyes squarely. It was an eerie juxtaposition. The last time Sam and Dean had been the same height had been right before Sam's eighteenth birthday, when he had explained he was leaving for college and Dean couldn't stop him. Suddenly, Sam felt like Dean was about to lay something life-changing on him, and felt himself hold his breath.

A moment passed. Two. Then Dean shrugged and continued eating his sandwich like nothing had happened.

Sam wanted to _scream._ He _knew_ Dean had been about to say something important, and he had fucking chickened out at the last second like he always did. Dean _never_ said anything important unless they were about to go into, or had just come out of, a life-or-death scenario. How fucked up was it that they could only talk about the important things when it seemed like one of them was about to die?

Sam stood up, went to the bathroom, and tried to somehow slam the door in a way that didn't read “petulant child.”  He didn't succeed, but the sound was at least satisfying. 

He turned on the tap and splashed water on his face, trying to calm down and get rid of the angry flush he knew was on his face. He tried to relax his jaw as well, since he could definitely feel his molars grinding against each other.

This _always_ happened. God forbid if Dean ever took it upon himself to open a line of communication and actually _tell_ Sam what he was thinking before something major happened. It made Sam want to kill someone. Or rather, it made him want to kill _several_ someones, but unfortunately, aside from the monsters they already hunted, it was generally frowned upon to go find random idiots on the street and prevent them from passing on their genes. In addition, people usually discouraged fratricide.

Sometimes, though, Dean's inability to just _talk_ about things made Sam want to pick him up and slam him against a wall a few times. He was probably strong enough to do it too. The thought was tempting, but the resulting bruises and broken bones from Dean fighting him on it wouldn't be worth it. The potential hernia he would get from hoisting Dean into the air enough to actually throw him against something _definitely_ wasn't worth it.

Sam took a few deep breaths and locked eyes with his reflection. Water was still sliding down his face in droplets, and some of the hair around his face had gotten wet too, but he didn't much care. He nodded to himself. He would be okay. It was frustrating to be _so close_ to having Dean finally talk to him like a _brother_ instead of just a hunting partner, then have him back down.

If Sam was being honest with himself, he knew he was just as terrified of what would come out of such a talk as Dean seemed to be with starting it. _Sam_ didn't even want to _start_ the conversation, much as he wanted it to happen. Whatever Dean thought or did, Sam didn't want to kill the last shreds of brotherly companionship between them when they were driving somewhere together, having a beer or staring at pretty girls for the hell of it. He hated catch-22 situations like this. The Winchester family had a tradition of actions speaking louder than words. Unfortunately, that led to misunderstandings that persisted until it was often too late.

Sam, even while he cursed himself for his own cowardice, hoped and prayed that, for once, something would go their way and he could somehow tell Dean that he was terrified of the thought of losing him.

He broke the staring contest with the mirror, found a small towel, and dried his face and steeled himself away from his thoughts. If he didn't hurry, Dean probably would eat the rest of his lunch. And dammit, that sandwich was _good._

Waiting for miracles was about as useless as it sounded. When research and legwork failed, sitting on one's ass hoping for inspiration had never seemed like a good use of time. Even if a person was looking for answers in vain, at least the person wasn't letting entropy swallow him or her whole.

Sam was so bored that he was considering letting entropy take the winning hand.

When things met abrupt dead ends like this, he _always_ felt this strange state of mind come over him. He thought in cliches and anecdotes and got even more philosophical about things than was healthy. It was usually in this state that he made the majority of his decisions, right or wrong. A state of mind like this had convinced him that asking out Jessica had been a good idea, and that drinking Ruby was utterly brilliant. Sam conveniently chose to ignore the fact that it wasn't just his _brain_ making either choice.

Sam hadn't exactly expected a whole new line of inquiry to do any good, but what astonished him was that absolutely _nothing_ had come of it. There wasn't a single witness/victim who had seen anything or anyone out of the ordinary the day they were taken away. No one had reported stalking, uncomfortable attention from a complete stranger, or macabre events. Of course, Sam figured wryly, if some person had shown up vomiting _frogs,_ chances were it'd end up in the newspaper. Just in case, he'd taken the Impala to the gas station near the 217 freeway entrances and bought every single type of media rag he could find, in the name of research.

The _Playboy_ mags might not have been purely _research_ material, but he figured either he or Dean would enjoy studying them later.

Work came before fun, so Sam forced himself to run over victim dialogue in his head one more time, checking what he remembered against what he had written down. He clicked on the light next to his bed and read his notes as he thought. After a while, he put the notebook down next to him, then put his head against the headboard to once again stare at the ceiling. Nothing important had changed in the case, and nothing was going to change, so Sam forced himself to accept it.

He might have had an easier and faster time coming to that conclusion had he been able to talk with Dean about it, but predictably (Sam sometimes hated how often he was right), Dean had not spoken one word since that abortive gut-spill earlier. At least he hadn't had time to start in on Sam's lunch before Sam felt calm enough to exit the bathroom. Point of fact, Dean had barely acknowledged Sam sitting back down to eat. Sam hadn't either and didn't really taste the remainder of his food. He had finished it anyway, since he hated to waste.

Sam had idly noted that Dean had a faint reddish tinge to his cheeks that normally wasn't there. For a guy who spent a lot of time outside doing physical things, Dean had a surprisingly pale complexion. There was enough color to his skin so that he didn't look like a corpse, but seeing a healthy pink on his face was not normal for him. The brother with the rosy complexion was definitely Sam. The slight sign of embarrassment was enough for Sam to at least begin to forgive Dean for being a...

Sam frowned briefly. He couldn't really call his brother a tease, since that would imply things about their relationship that--

\---people already assumed were happening anyway. Dammit. 

Sam briefly wondered if it would have been easier for them if there was more of a family resemblance. They weren't built alike, their coloring was different, and the only similarity they really shared was eye color, and even _that_ wasn't a match. Sam's eyes, unlike Dean's, were only occasionally green.

Great. Now trying to think of an appropriate word to describe what Dean had done was going to bother him more than trying to solve this case.

“Screw this,” he heard Dean mutter. Sam looked up in time to see Dean, dressed for the day in blue, shrug on his leather jacket and grab the keys.

“Dean, where you going?” Sam asked. This was hopefully not Dean pulling a bitch-fit and going to sulk somewhere. Nothing good ever happened when Dean went off to act like a whiny brat.

“I'm going to find a liquor store and buy as much booze as I can carry,” Dean snapped. “I'm sick and tired of this case dead-ending.” As an aside, he also growled, “and I'm damn sick of the rain!”

With that, Dean flounced--Sam didn't think there was a better word for it--out the door. Instead of the door rattling the frame, Dean was forced to pull the door faster than its own hydraulics could shut, resulting in a totally emasculating click. Sam wisely made sure not to let the laughter escape before he heard the Impala start. Dean had insanely good hearing, usually when it was inconvenient for Sam.

Sam certainly didn't mind the idea of getting good and drunk now that it was apparent the case truly _had_ hit a dead end, but he wondered if it would be good for Dean. Dean didn't seem like he was holding his liquor as well as he used to, and Sam wondered if it was age or something else at work. Perhaps Dean had also developed gut issues, except his only surfaced when he drank, instead of being due to  his crappy eating habits. God knew that Dean had reason enough to drink himself into alcohol poisoning if he wanted, and he _had_ come damn close a few times.

Sam still remembered the bender Dean had gone on after Ben and Lisa were out of his life permanently. He was surprised that he _hadn't_ had to take Dean to the hospital to get his stomach pumped. Perhaps Castiel had had something to do with Dean's continued good health, even while he abused it. Sam couldn't be sure of that, since it would have involved the one-time deity staying a lot closer to them than he had wanted at the time. Sam was sure it was just Dean's weird ability to judge exactly when to stop if he didn't want to get drunk or pickle his innards. The pickled-innard stage was usually when Dean was at his most talkative, but the downside was that he stopped making as much sense.

Even considering this afternoon's previous flub regarding deepening their brotherly bond (and Sam seriously couldn't believe thoughts like that ran through his head sometimes), Sam was looking forward to getting drunk with Dean. Maybe they'd _talk_ while they were a few sheets to the wind. Maybe they'd find some way to get around the elephant in the room and work like always, or go back to being brothers instead of partnered vigilantes with the same parents. God knew it wouldn't be the first time.

And maybe, just maybe, Sam would drink enough liquid courage to actually start the conversation they should have had before Jessica was a part of the picture.

Sam was idly flipping through television channels, finally settling on something that showed reruns of some hour-long procedural, when Dean returned, lugging a bag that clinked with bottles in one hand, and a six-pack of beer in the other. Sam didn't recognize the brand, so he figured it was one of those microbrews specific to the Northwest.

Dean unceremoniously dropped the six-pack and the bag on the table, then turned to the door once again.

“Dean, where are you going?” Sam didn't think Dean was just going to _leave_ him to drink by himself--

“Back to the car,” Dean said. “There are a few more six-packs and bags in there.”

Sam hurriedly put on some slippers, then followed him out. “Dude, did you buy out the store or something?”

“Or something,” Dean agreed with him as he opened the driver's side back door, pulled out two more six-packs and handed them to Sam. “Maybe we'll get somewhere if we get hammered.”

Sam shrugged, trying not to wince as the plastic bag handles cut into his palms. “Maybe? Can't hurt at this rate.”

From the sheer number of bottles Sam was carrying, as well as the ones Dean had already brought in, and the other bags Sam could see still cluttering the backseat, Sam might have been lying to himself. Even so, he couldn't think of anything else useful to do, save trying to get drunk in an unfamiliar city in _public_ , which wasn't nearly as safe. Staying in had the unfortunate side effect of not bringing any eligible women into their proximity, but Sam was fine with that, at least temporarily.

The first three beers went down easy. So did the half bottle of tequila and some really awesome flavored vodka Dean had bought. Sam knew that Dean would never admit to his appreciation of fruity-flavored booze. It wasn't to say that Dean hated the harder stuff, since he didn't, but Sam had seen that Dean, if given the choice of a beer or some martini glass full of something unnaturally colored, would take the beer, but stare longingly at the glass while he drank it.

Dean totally had manliness issues, though. Sam swiped the Cuervo bottle from Dean, who was totally going after the pomegranate vodka bottle anyway, so he didn't even notice. Sam just didn't care. Booze was booze, whether it was sweet or not. He poured a few shots for Dean out of the kindness of his heart, because Sam was the little brother everyone wanted. The parents of his friends at college had said so.

Sam blinked. Registered the fact that he was holding an empty bottle of tequila and Dean had not only finished his shots and the bottle of vodka, but had started in on the whiskey. Sam really liked whiskey, so he slid a glass over and got a healthy dose of it from Dean. It seemed like a whole lot of time had passed since they'd started drinking. Not like they had anywhere to be. Dumbass case. Sam thought about spitting with contempt, but it wasn't something he liked to do. That and he didn't want Dean to challenge him to a spitting contest.  Again.

It was getting harder to hold his head up, so Sam didn't even bother trying. He leaned against the other hand, and laughed when it not only slid off the table, but nearly sent him to the floor. Everything was funny right now. Dean was lining the rim of one of the plastic cups with kosher salt, which didn't make sense to Sam, but then he was pouring more tequila from a full bottle into it. Cool. Sam would have to try that later.

He was getting tired though. And it was cold. Shouldn't he be warm, with all this booze in his system? Something about vasoda--vasodilate--vasodilation? Yeah, his veins and crap should be all open and warm now. Didn't make sense.

Sam's eyes slid shut on that thought. He tried to open them, but couldn't figure out how. They were really heavy. Heavier than the Impala. Hard to push them up his face. He was still cold too. It was cold and dark. 

Really...cold...


	7. Present

**Chapter Six: Present**

_“Trying to make some sense of it all,  
But I can see that it makes no sense at all.  
Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor?  
‘Cause I don’t think that I can take anymore.”_  
Stealers Wheel, “Stuck In The Middle With You”

 

“I am _never_ fucking getting drunk again.”

“Dean--”

“No, Sammy, I swear to fucking Whoever, _never again.”_

Dean was so mad his head started pounding again, but definitely not because of the booze. How could he have been so stupid? Getting drunk had never seemed like as good an idea as it had last night, and it had been _years_ since Dean had let himself go like that. Neither of them had had the sense to _stop._ What had gotten into them last night? Had it been even longer since they had decided to see how much booze they could each handle? Were they just frustrated?

For fuck's sakes, neither of them had even bothered to lay out the most basic of security precautions Dad had drilled into them! The hex bags hadn’t been placed near their beds. There hadn't been any salt lining any of the entrances except the window, and the only reason the _window_ had had its salt line intact was because neither of them had needed to open it! The only personal protection either of them had had on them was the Key inked on their chests, and that only kept them from being possessed. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

“Hey, Dean, quit the pity party and knock on the walls.”

“What?” Had Sammy lost it?

“The walls, Dean,” Sam repeated, sounding like he was hanging onto his patience by a thread. Dean wished he wasn't so familiar with that tone. “Even if the door's been concealed, it has to still be there, so if we start tapping--”

“--we can find the hollow point and try busting our way out,” Dean finished, getting and approving the idea in the same breath. He walked to one of the walls and started tapping, trying to ignore the way it made his head throb. The pain pills _were_ helping, he noted, but considering how much booze he remembered and _didn't_ remember having last night, chances were high that he'd probably have to take more of them a lot sooner than he would normally.

Shit, what _had_ made him want to drink like that last night? It didn't seem right, now that he thought about it. This entire case was making him way more irritated than he should have been. They had only been working it a few days; granted, none of those days had been exactly what he would call _fun,_ but it wasn't like they hadn't hit stone walls in investigations before. What was getting on his nerves like this? The last time he had gotten that drunk was when he had made the decision to get out of Ben and Lisa's lives. He still thought about Ben. He didn't think so much about Lisa these days, but he _definitely_ missed having the kid around.

Dean put the thought of his former sort-of kid out of his head. Escaping this room was their priority, not someone who was out of his life for his and his mom's own safety.

There wasn't a way to time it, but Dean felt at least an hour go by as they carefully combed the walls, hoping for an echo to lead them out. Dean made sure to double-check Sam's walls, and after a moment of silent staring, Sam went and did the same to the walls Dean had examined. Still, much like the case they had been investigating, no solution to the problem came forward.

Sighing, Dean raked a hand through his hair, then went and sat down on the couch-bed he had woken up on. Deliberately, he picked up the bottle of water had had earlier and finished it off. It did wonders for his headache and the horrible taste in his mouth. He idly wished that there was a bathroom or something in here with a toothbrush and toothpaste. It wasn't as though he planned on kissing someone anytime soon or anything, but he couldn't _stand_ himself right now.

“Give it up, Sam,” he said finally, and saw Sam turn to look at him. “There's not going to be a door, so you might as well come and have more water.”

For a second, it looked like Sam wanted to argue with him, and Dean wearily braced himself for the possibility. It sometimes seemed like Sam went out of his way to talk at him when Dean only wanted it to be quiet. Then Sam nodded, winced, and went to sit on his own couch-bed. He grabbed an unopened bottle of water, broke the seal, and while maintaining some eye contact, slowly drank. Dean came to the late realization that, barring supernatural interference or someone putting something in the bottled water before the bottles were sealed, it wasn't likely that the water had been drugged. Dean briefly thought about slapping a hand to his forehead, then decided against it. Even the _idea_ of doing that hurt, so doing the real thing probably wouldn't improve his temper.

Dean opened another bottle of water and took a slow mouthful, letting it swish around and take more of that taste out of his mouth before he swallowed. He did it twice more before he felt satisfied. Sam had drained another full bottle of water by that point, and Dean started seriously considering the problem with not having a bathroom. They both seemed to have beaten back the nausea their drinking binge had induced, but they would still need to _pee_ sometime. Why the hell wasn't there a damn toilet in this place? Why the hell was he thinking about a goddamn _bathroom_ when he was stuck in some room without doors with his brother, both recovering from massive hangovers?

Dean fucking _hated_ unanswerable questions.

“Maybe we should search the floor next?” Sam suggested, toying with the empty bottle.

“Not a bad plan,” Dean agreed, looking down. The floor was a dark stained wood that, somehow, was completely smooth. While they had walked around knocking on walls, Dean hadn't hit a single rough patch of floor or encountered any splinters. That argued for whoever had kidnapped them being either incredibly rich, or with a lot of time on his or her hands.

“Won't be necessary, boys,” a new voice interjected softly. The voice was young, female, and _Scottish_ , Dean realized with a thrill of excitement. Dean stood up a second after Sam did, and looked toward a corner of the room. Sure enough, a ghost hovered just above the floor, looking much like one of the players at a Ren-faire re-enactment. She looked young, and though she was obviously mature, it was equally obvious that she wasn't out of her teens.

“We aren't boys,” Dean said finally, trying not to wince at the lameness of his own reply.

“To me, y'are,” the young ghost said flatly, her accent thick but understandable. “Tappin' all along these walls, tryin' to find an exit in vain. Sometimes, there just _isn't_ an exit.”

“Who are you?” Sam interjected.

The young female ghost laughed. “What, so ye cain try sending me to my Maker, boy? E'en if I told ye, it wouldna do you good.”

“Because we can't get out of this room?” Sam asked, laughing darkly. Dean looked sidelong at his brother. He hadn't thought that kind of laugh could have come out of Sam. It had when his brother had walked around without a soul, but full-souled Sam? Dean, to his surprise, had to repress a shiver.

“Nae, lad,” the ghost said with surprise. “Tis just that I need no exorcizin', is all.”

“You're a ghost, _kid_ ,” Dean said, trying to throw her off. “Soon, you'll start going crazy and then you'll start killing people, no matter who's controlling you--”

“Nae again,” the ghost interrupted. “I'm not being controlled. Here of my own free will, y'know.”

“How's that possible?” Sam asked curiously.

“Still tryin' to find out me name?” The ghost smiled shyly, and Dean absently noticed that, had she not died before reaching legal age and adulthood, she might have been a pretty young woman. “Ye'll find out in good time. For now, tis time to go.” With that, she vanished.

Dean muttered several choice swears under his breath, then spoke louder for Sam's benefit. “Well, _that_ was spectacularly useless.”

“Unless she was lying, she did say she wasn't being controlled,” Sam pointed out. “That's something.”

“So a ghost spontaneously decides to kidnap people, have a nice talk with them, then put them back where they live,” Dean said sarcastically. “That makes _tons_ of sense. Maybe that was the point of all this. Fan-fucking- _tastic.”_

Sam rolled his eyes, but didn't respond. Instead, he stood up again and began tapping his feet against the floor. It made Dean want to scream to admit it to himself, but Sam was being more useful than Dean was. Instead of apologizing (since that was obviously admitting a weakness, and Dean just didn't _do_ that), Dean got up and started doing the same.

Once again, Dean lost all track of time. They worked out a rhythm to their search, waiting for the other to stop tapping before the other started. Sam got frustrated with the idea first, and sat down on the couch, glaring at the space between his feet. Dean also stopped what he was doing, but didn't go to put himself into Sam's line of sight. If Sam found something to focus his anger on, then they'd argue and probably stop working as well together as they currently were.

“You're not going to find an exit.”

Dean whirled around, ignoring the faint dizziness the movement brought, and found himself forced to look _up_ at someone. A female someone. A very tall female someone. How the fucking _hell_ had she gotten into the room without him noticing?

The woman--an adult, instead of the teenage ghost that had kept them company--was actually taller than Dean, which was rare for _men_ , let alone women. Dean was astonished to meet _anyone_ who was literally as tall as his brother, and for that person to be a woman was doubly shocking. Adding to his astonishment, she didn't seem as disproportionate as he might have expected, considering her height. Her curvature wasn't as dramatic as the women Dean had dated, but then again, Dean's preferences in women normally went more toward the petite and curvaceous. Since he'd never met a woman taller than him, they were entirely off his radar.

She was very beautiful, with classically elegant features, but her features had a strange serenity and remoteness that somehow made finding her sexually appealing difficult, if not impossible. Her eyes had the intense blue Dean only found when the sun was setting, her skin was faintly olive without any hint of a tan, and her hair was black and braided in a crown on her head. She wore a dark green, long-sleeved button-down shirt, iron-grey slacks, and gladiator-style sandals that matched the pants.

Adding to his growing sense of intimidation, Dean saw that her shoes didn't have any heel that could have made her taller.

“Did _you_ bring us here?” Dean knew he was being rude. He didn't care. This oversized bitch was going to give him answers, or--

“Of course I did.”

Dean paused. Took a breath. He seemed to have missed something. “You did?”

“I did, yes,” she confirmed.

“Why would you do that?” Sam asked, sounding no better off than Dean felt. 

Dean offhandedly wondered if Sam was feeling as strange about meeting a women he could look in the eye as Dean felt about encountering one taller than him.

She looked into Dean's eyes for a moment, then focused on Sam. She stepped between the two couches, within both their reaches. Folding her arms, she focused on a spot in front of her, and to Dean's further surprise, a chair appeared precisely where she had been staring. She turned the chair to face the couches, then sat down. Dean let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. When she was standing, the room had seemed a _lot_ smaller.

“People have been complaining about you two,” she said finally. “Many people, living and dead, immortal _and_ mortal. Your potential is being wasted, and there are many beings, myself included, who simply cannot allow this situation to continue.”

“Our potential,” Dean said flatly. “What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?”

“I am not speaking in metaphors, Dean Winchester,” the woman said calmly, crossing her legs primly at the ankles. “I am being quite literal when I say your potential is being wasted.”

“I think Dean was trying to ask you to be more specific,” Sam interjected. Dean felt a brief flash of irritation, but it smoothed over when the mysterious woman frowned as well.

“Very well,” she said, inclining her head to them. Dean, for the first time since she had entered the room, heard a strange accent underscoring her words. It wasn't any of the American accents he had heard over the course of his life, so it could only mean that she wasn't from the States. He filed that away for future consideration.

“It has been brought to my attention that a great deal of the abilities you two possess are being taken up by petty issues, sapping both your time and energy,” she stated. Dean noted that, while she _sounded_ bored, her eyes were intently and constantly watching both Sam and Dean.

Dean laughed snidely at the woman. "What issues, sweetheart?"

"Your over-achieving blindness, for one," she countered serenely. "I believe we can cover your slightly misogynistic tendencies another time, but for now, what we are trying to focus on is your past mastery of burying your hurts and concerns."

Dean shrugged and decided to bluff. "I don't have any."

"And there is the blindness again," sighed the woman. "I should have expected this. Her requests never did come cheap."

"What requests?" Sam chimed in curiously. If Dean hadn't been so grossed out by the idea, he might have kissed his baby brother at that point. Distracting her might help them figure out a way of getting them out of that room--

"Nothing you will hear until you are ready to leave this room," she said smoothly, and Dean repressed a sigh. So much for distraction.

"You are _not_ going to distract me, Dean Winchester, so it would be better to cease trying."

Great, now she could read his fucking thoughts.

"And no, I am _not_ reading your thoughts. You are, simply, _quite_ transparently hopeful the moment you think you are able to get away from an unpleasant situation." She shrugged, ruffling her green blouse. "It is obvious once you know what to look for. Now, I believe we were talking about your issues?"

"I'm not discussing those with you, lady, or with anyone else if I had them!"

The woman opened her mouth, then closed it. She hummed thoughtfully. "You are correct."

Dean felt a surge of hope. Maybe they'd get out of this room if she couldn't get anything out of them she wanted--

"And again, Dean Winchester, your persistence is admirable, but you will not get out of this room until I receive what I expect."

"And what's that?" Dean sneered. "Our lives? Souls?" Pause. "Livers?"

"I prefer my livers to not look like beveled cheese, so you can eliminate the latter option," the woman drawled sarcastically. "Also, in a way, your lives are already mine, so it is not like I need you to swear them to me. As for souls--" She again hummed thoughtfully. "No souls. Those have never been within my domain."

"What do you mean our lives are already--" Sam started to say, and she cut him off.

"But we were talking about your issues, or rather, _we_ were not."  She shot Dean a sly smile, and Dean tried not to squirm at the insinuation he could clearly see on her face. " _I_ was attempting to have _you_ talk freely about your issues, while meeting a brick wall. _You_ were trying to get out of it. Very well. I shall start from there."

"Did you really just trap us in this room just to get us to talk about ourselves?" Sam asked curiously. "I mean, you're not going to kill us or anything?"

Beyond anything either of them had said, Dean saw that Sam's question really shocked the woman, and impossibly, he felt himself starting to relax. Perhaps this situation wasn't as bad as it could have been. Maybe he'd even get to keep the couch.

 _"Kill you?"_ The woman said incredulously. "After all the time and effort it took to create this room, keep you safe within it, and ensure your enemies are unaware of your location, preventing them from harming you? I will most certainly _not_ kill you!"

"So you seriously want us in here," Dean said slowly, "to discuss us? Our lives? What'll it get you?"

"In all honesty?" The woman scoffed a bit. "Nothing. It has never been my style or intention to talk when a well-placed sword to the gut can solve things in a much simpler manner...but this is also a part of my duties, rarely though I practice it." She huffed out a laugh. "More now so than ever. It was so much simpler back before the world modernized."

"What do you mean by that?" Sam demanded.

"Precisely what I said, of course," she replied blithely. "Now, I was speaking of Dean and his inability to be open with his feelings." She scoffed. "Goodness, we are talking about _feelings._ If any of my siblings saw me doing this, I would be laughed out of town."

"Then you probably get why _I_ don't have a desire to discuss them with you, lady," Dean sneered, trying not to let on that he had caught her slip. If he could discover who she was, then maybe he could figure out a way to kill her and get a door into the room. He decided to play along with her a little bit. With luck, she'd drop more of those tidbits that would clue him into her identity.

"It has never been my way to concern myself with feelings aside from bravery in battle, or wisdom in tactics," the woman said, absently patting her hair. "However, these modern times seem to allow a person to have both fragilities and strength beyond their normal daily personae, so I suppose it is to be expected. What I did not expect is how far you have been willing to push yourself, Dean Winchester, along the road to denying your possession of feelings at all."

Dean felt himself start to sweat. "I don't have a freaking clue what you're talking--"

"Do _not_ ," she interjected. "Do not even try to deny you have been doing it. I have seen you doing this ever since that fateful day you have never been able to excise, so do not deny it, and do not _lie_ to me." She glared at him. "Further, do not deny it to _him_." She jerked her head in Sam's direction. "You fail to do him any favors keeping it all inside where it tears you apart."

"Dean, what's she talking about?" Sam asked tremulously, and all Dean could hear was the little boy his brother had been, asking him why Dad left them in dinky motels all the time, why they kept moving, why couldn't they have friends...

"He never could block out the night your mother was murdered, Samuel Winchester," the woman answered somberly. Dean felt himself heating up under the collar even more as she callously brought up their mother. How _dare_ she even--

"She was a person I respected greatly," the woman continued, and Dean felt his rage start to subside as his curiosity was tapped. "I met her several times during her life, and she always had the grace and intelligence to deal with all obstacles. You both met her in the past as adults, did you not? Were you able to see how she was?"

Sam was nodding slowly, and even Dean felt like agreeing with the woman. But who _was_ this crazy chick? How could she have met their mother several times, then be here with them now, all without looking a day over 30?

"I grieved when that yellow-eyed bastard murdered her," the woman continued sadly. One tear slipped from her eye and travelled slowly down her cheek, and Dean noticed that she didn't make an effort to wipe it away. "And I rejoiced when you killed him," she said bringing her head up. "Mary Campbell-Winchester would be proud of you."

"Is Mom the person you owe the favor to, that asked you to do this?" Sam asked tentatively. Dean could almost sympathize with his brother; he wanted to hear more about their mother too, but more than that, they still needed to figure out a way to get out of here before someone came looking. Or before this woman decided that she actually _did_ want them dead after all. Guarantees from kidnappers didn't exactly make Dean feel all confident and squishy inside.

"No," she sighed. "That one is far before your time, child. Mary has requested my aid for this, but the young lady who asked me has her own reasons."

So, the person who had requested this was a woman...that did not narrow this down at all. He wished he had their dad's book. Surely there would have been a mention of freaky kidnappings in rooms with no doors with a woman who was easily Sam's height and built like a well-shaped brick shithouse. There hadn't been any openings for freaky kidnappings in pitch-black rooms with a teenage ghost for company, but maybe Dean just had to read it again.

“However, we are here currently to discuss what you are currently wasting,” the woman continued, making Dean aware that she had neither introduced herself, or made it possible for them, conversationally, to ask for her name. “Your work suffers for this deplorable preoccupation, and I wish for you to cease it.”

By now, Dean had a fairly good idea of what had happened, and he didn't see a point in hiding that he knew. "So, what, you made some chick up in order to lure us to you somehow?"

"Something of that nature," the woman said, smiling slightly.

"You didn't think, oh, asking was a good idea?"

Somehow, it didn't seem right for a woman with obvious poise and elegance to roll her eyes in quite that manner, but she managed it without losing any dignity.

"Asking you," she sneered. "Excellent jest. You two are known for your near-legendary ability to go against any and all advice, sane or otherwise, and you are here trying to tell me that all I would have had to do to get you here is _ask_." The lack of a question mark was very clearly heard. "Good one, as they say in this century. Pull the other leg. It drops swords."

He didn't think he would be able to respond to that.

"Besides, I did not make anyone up," she continued.

"What?"

"The girl is real," the woman said sweetly. "She is rather nice, and has also been dead for quite some time, but thought it would be wise to offer her assistance."

"Wait, she _is_ a ghost?"  Dean was very confused, and Sam wasn’t talking at all.  A glance at Sam showed Dean that he was listening and thinking at the same time.

"Not exactly." The woman smiled wider. "Though not widely advertised, it appears that saints, unlike other ghosts, not only cannot be exorcised, but retain their sanity."

"That little girl...is a saint?"

"Why, yes," the woman responded. "Her name is Dympna. She's the patron saint of psychology."

Dean heard Sam choking on something, and checked on him again. Sam had the look on his face that Dean both dreaded and loved seeing, because, while  it meant that a lot of things were coming together for him, it also meant that they would have to go and do something particularly messy. 

“ _That's_ why no one is controlling her?” Sam declared. “It's really possible for a saint to be among the living without going insane?”

“Not only does it appear possible, but you have seen the proof yourself,” the woman said, looking pleased with Sam's sum-up of the situation. “My people do not generally leave behind their unquiet spirits to roam, but it appears that others have created a viable solution. Unfortunately, it appears to require someone in the mortal coil to recognize and canonize a specific person.”

Mortal coil? _Her_ people? Who was this woman? She was speaking like--oh. Dean got it.

“You're a deity, aren't you?” He almost accused her of it, and waited to see how she reacted.

“I was worshipped as such, yes,” she replied, giving him a faint smile. Dean felt oddly happy at her approval, and was confused by it. Why her opinion meant anything at all to him was another mystery to pile onto the list that was growing. Still, if she was some sort of god, then it _seriously_ narrowed down the list of suspects. “I still am, in some quarters,” she continued. “My guidance is still sought in matters of battle.”

Dean knew that had been a hint, but he just didn't get it. Sam didn't look like he had any real idea of who she was either. Dean might not be doing as badly as he thought if Sam was just as confused.

“I'm going to try and spell this out to see if I've got it in order,” Dean said slowly, since it looked like Sam was thinking too hard to speak. “The ghost-chick, Dympna, is a saint.”

The woman nodded, smirking slightly. Dean chose to ignore that.

“Since apparently saints can't lose their shit, there was never any danger involved in her coming down to this 'mortal coil,' or whatever you called it, and taking people away to talk.”

“I cannot say I approve of your syntax, but this is correct so far,” the woman answered with a frown of distaste.

“Great,” Dean continued. “So, if I'm getting everything in order, she just sent out the normal ghost-signals to lure hunters here?”

“Not generally,” the woman corrected him gently, waving a hand. “Specifically, she and I hoped to lure you and your brother to us, Dean Winchester.”

“But if you're a god, you could have just come here at any time,” Sam said, breaking his silence. “Why the need to lure us?”

“It was never within that young woman to simply act as bait, Samuel Winchester.” The seated woman shrugged, a gesture that seemed forced. “Given what she is the patron saint of, she could not simply allow her posthumous characteristics to do the job for her. No, that one must get involved.”

Dean frowned. “What does that mean?”

“As I understand it, should someone be named the patron saint of a particular city, person, or topic, the person canonized must practice in that field.” The woman looked up at the ceiling briefly, then back at Sam and Dean. “Since her topic is psychology, she must exercise her craft. So many people crying out in their minds and hearts for help of that nature would have been an irresistible lure, and one she is bound to answer.”

“And saints can't hurt people?” Dean said skeptically. If they made it out of here, researching saints would be the _first_ thing he did.

“They appear incapable of it,” the woman confirmed. “However, I admit to unfamiliarity with the concept. In addition, they cannot be exorcised from this realm, as she no doubt informed you.”

Dean thought back, and managed a wry smile. “Yes, she did.”

“So, if she's the patron saint of psychology, or whatever, why isn't _she_ here talking to us about this supposed lack of potential?” Sam asked. Dean nodded slightly, backing up his brother.

“That one has a valiant heart, but alas, she knew full well that her experiences with counseling do not mesh with the needs you and your brother have, Samuel Winchester,” she replied.

“Please, just Sam,” Sam said, looking pained. Dean knew that Sam had _always_ hated being called Samuel, and even more so after he had gotten to meet (and end up killing) his namesake grandfather.

“Very well, Sam,” the woman said gravely. “But as I was saying, she appealed to me for aid with your situation, and considering that you both fall under my purview, I could not fail to answer.”

“Purview?” Dean asked.

“Many of us minor deities often take certain skilled humans under our pavilions, to aid in difficult times,” was her reply. “You two are mine.”

“This have anything to do with our lives somehow being yours?” Dean remembered she had said that earlier.

“Quite, and excellently caught,” she praised him, and Dean again felt that weird combination of pride and confusion that had come over him the first time she had smiled at him. “Are we ready to discuss certain things, or will there be further delay?”

Dean sighed. “We're not going to get out of this room until we do what you want, are we?”

“No.”

“Then, before we start doing this, or whatever, could I ask a favor?” Dean was trying to fight a blush, and had the sinking feeling that he wasn't succeeding.

“I suppose you may,” she said, sounding confused.

Dean took a deep breath, but Sam broke in before he could start speaking. “Could you conjure us a bathroom?”

Under normal circumstances, Dean was usually happy when Sam was operating on the same wavelength as he was. In front of this mysterious woman, however, all it did was embarrass him.

Apparently, having a deity that seemed to be solidly on their side was an advantage. A single raised eyebrow and a momentary look of concentration later, two doors had appeared. Dean had not wasted any time running into one and shutting the door, hearing the other one close a second behind. He thought he heard someone laughing, but decided to ignore it. He had bigger concerns, like his bladder and the need to search for any and all openings in the bathroom he could exploit.

It turned out that there wasn't a single window in the room, and the sole vent was too small to even get his hand into, but Dean was nothing if not stubborn. A stubborn sort who took entirely too much pleasure in _finally_ being able to use the toilet, wash his hands, and brush his teeth. To his shock, unopened soap, a toothbrush, and toothpaste had been in the bathroom when he had entered. Maybe he was getting soft in his old age, but dammit, he didn't feel like being near this woman while his mouth smelled and tasted like all the nasty tofu dishes Sam had ever eaten in his presence _combined._

Feeling somewhat refreshed, though underdressed (he wondered in passing who had changed his clothes, because he didn’t remember putting on his pajamas before getting sloshed), he exited the room to find Sam already talking quietly with the woman. Both were standing, and Dean was again struck with the fact that she was eye level with his not-so-little baby brother, which made him feel pretty small in comparison. Maybe this was how the girls he dated felt when _he_ stood next to them.

Sam was looking frustrated even while he appeared to be listening intently, and Dean had the feeling that he had been fishing for information. His suspicion was confirmed when Sam said, loud enough for Dean to hear as he walked toward them, “it's not like we haven't been kidnapped before. Is there some other purpose behind this?”

The woman looked like trying to both frown and smile at the same time. The frown won.

“It has been too long since either of you have heard the unvarnished truth spoken,” she said sadly. “Suspicion is good for any warrior to have, but too much clouds any and all interaction one must have with others.”

“If we ain't suspicious, then we're dead, lady,” Dean said, not attempting to be polite. 

She nodded, and didn’t seem to take any offense.

“You are not wrong, but neither are you right,” she murmured. “This is why you have as many troubles as you do. You wish to believe, but your suspicion pushes everyone away.”

Dean fidgeted a little, but decided to let that pass. He sat back down on his couch and, though it made his back tense, decided to recline facing her. It was pretty obvious to him that trying to intimidate a woman who was bigger than him, deity or not, wasn't going to work. In addition, he didn't want that crack she had made about him being a suspicious fucker proven right.

Sam, however, had _not_ let it go. “Suspicion pushing people away?” He repeated. Dean didn't quite get the look Sam had on his face. It was almost as if Sam had never even had that thought cross his mind.

“It is so,” the mystery woman agreed. “It has caused _both_ of you difficulty in your chosen lives.”

“I wouldn't say we _chose_ these lives,” Sam argued, and something twisted in Dean's gut at the anger in Sam's voice. It was the familiar old pain in knowing Sam wouldn't have ever stayed in the family business if he had had a real choice.

“You are more dedicated to this life than your brother,” the woman said, a statement that brought Dean from a forced-casual recline to sitting bolt upright in less than a second.

“Yes,” Sam said, no hesitation in his voice. “It wasn't that way before, but now, there's no way I could ever stop.” He looked at Dean, who was still shocked silent at the admission. “It never seems to matter how many times I stop, or how long I stop for, I always come back to this because I want to, not because I have to.”

Unexpectedly, Dean found himself fighting back tears, and somehow the woman saw it.  She had a tender expression on her face as she sat down next to him. She put an arm around his shoulders and guided him gently to her shoulder, in order to hide his face as much as to provide comfort, he somehow knew. Dean was oddly grateful to her, even though he wasn't ashamed. He had never felt shame in crying, since Dad had cried a lot after their mom had died, and Dad hadn’t taught either Sam or Dean that crying was, in any way, unmanly. He generally disliked showing his emotions so transparently, though. 

It was strange that this woman _knew_ that, and respected him enough to provide a way for him to regain control without losing face.

“Your lives have been difficult,” the woman stated simply, running fingers through the hair at the nape of Dean's neck. “Many cares have been laid upon your shoulders, Dean and Sam Winchester. You are both strong enough to bear it, but you should never have had to do so as early in your lives.” She paused, her hand stilling in the act of petting Dean. “It has caused you great physical distress, but more, it has caused you greater _emotional_ distress. That is why you are here with me; to rest, to purge your grief, and to partially recover the selves you have and might have had.”

“No one's ever really been super concerned with them before,” Sam said flatly, sounding hollow and angry and not at all like how he should sound. 

It made Dean's eyes dry immediately, because Sam was right. No one had ever been concerned with how well they were coping before, or if they had, those people were dead now. The litany of names marched through Dean's head like a macabre chorus line; Bobby, Jo, Ellen, Ash, and even that bitch Ruby (for some of the time) had all fallen to the wayside because they had gotten _involved_ with Dean and Sam's lives. Because they had all _cared_ in some way. That thought, beyond any others, made Dean angry.

But before he could act on that anger, the woman snapped her fingers on the hand not currently buried in Dean's hair. Almost in response to that sound, a sourceless, faint fluttering of wings signaled the arrival of an angel. Even though Dean had nearly no faith in their dealings with the feathered shitheads, Dean hoped it was an angel who was even halfway friendly to them. Perhaps they would then escape this room sooner than this lady thought. Then she would stop dredging up stuff from the past that made Dean shiver, want to cry, and want to shoot everything in sight.

“Hello, Castiel,” the woman said nonchalantly, and Dean looked up in relief. The familiar angel was clad equally familiarly in his tan trench coat,  and his suit and tie were as messed up as usual. His own eyes, a paler blue than the woman's, locked with Dean's for a moment, then looked toward Sam as if to ensure his safety, then finally, he met the tall woman's gaze.

“Hello,” Castiel said in that flat tone that, somehow, conveyed everything he wanted to with minimal inflection. 

A pause. 

“Athena.”


	8. Present Continuous

**Chapter Seven: Present Continuous**

_“Dear God,  
Sorry to disturb you but,  
I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.  
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears,  
And all the people you made in your image,  
See them fighting in the street  
'cause they can't make opinions meet  
About God.”_  
XTC, “Dear God”

Castiel was a past master of being nonchalant, Sam knew. Even when he was emotionally disturbed in some way, he didn't always know how to make his human face reflect that, so he usually looked perfectly calm. It was equally possible, given his strange naivete about how humans interacted with each other, that he didn't quite have an idea of the seriousness of the situation.

Then it hit him. “ _Athena?_ ”

A chair appeared in the room. The woman ( _Athena_ , Sam thought with wonder and surprise), gently disentangled herself from cradling Dean to walk over to and guide Castiel to the chair. The light in the room, until Castiel had appeared, had been oddly steady. Even the ghost-saint Dympna had not caused any visual fluctuation, the normal arriving hallmark of any ghost. However, as Castiel and Athena walked between the couches, the light flickered slightly, and Sam saw giant wings attached to Castiel's trenchcoat flutter in a nonexistent breeze.

“Indeed,” Athena said gravely, a hint of a smile on her austere face. “That _is_ my name, after all.”

“You never told us your name,” Dean accused her.

“You never asked,” she replied simply, a glint of humor in her dark blue eyes. “It would have been rude and counterproductive to bluntly introduce myself in such a manner.” 

She seated herself, and Sam reluctantly did the same on the couch he had woken up on, still feeling surprised.

“I neither concealed my identity, nor failed to give you hints to guess it,” she added, and Sam had the distinctly uncharitable thought that, though she wasn't doing it openly, she was _definitely_ laughing at them. “I am mildly disappointed that you did not guess sooner.”

“You are not in your typical aspect, Athena,” Castiel stated.

“It was best not to frighten them,” she said matter-of-factly. “They have not had excellent experiences with my brethren, and I thought it preferable to fending off immediate attack upon recovery from their revelry.”

There was no disapproval in her voice concerning their night of frustrated binge-drinking, but Sam blushed anyway.

“You're the _real_ Athena?” He asked instead, trying to redirect the conversation and save himself some embarrassment.

“It would be very imprudent to have impostors going about doing misdeeds in my name,” she declared severely. “I have enough duties without going around and chastising those who would assume my aspect.” She folded her arms across her chest and frowned. “There was one who thought to do so. She even fooled my brother Ares, albeit temporarily. I am sure that you can 'fill in the rest,' as they say in this century.”

Sam could well imagine. Ares didn't have a reputation for being a forgiving god, and Athena even less so. Dean, even though he hadn't studied mythological figures with quite the same fervency as Sam, still winced at that statement.

“So, what, we're here for you to psychoanalyze, or whatever, to test our supposed _loyalty_ to you?” Dean choked out. Sam sent a warning glance toward Dean, but Athena had already turned that frown on him.

“No, you are here because the morass you have made of both your psyches have caused even those long _dead_ to rise, take notice, and complain to me and others about it,” Athena retorted. She looked almost as though she would have liked to hit something, and Sam found himself grateful that she didn't have a weapon and wasn't anywhere near him. He had the feeling, seeing the controlled power of finely trained muscles beneath her simple clothing as she moved, that she was fully capable of kicking his ass.

“Since both of you fall under my banner, so to speak, I drew the lot that gifted _me_ with this duty.” She paused, and the frown smoothed out as if it had never been. “However, know that I would have gladly taken this duty without requiring my brethren and I to choose you in such an unconventional manner.”

Sam felt a little better at that point, knowing that Athena, as a goddess of wisdom and warriors, often _did_ descend from Mount Olympus to gift advice on those she deemed worthy, if the myths were anything to go by. So far, what he had seen was true, but he wasn't sure that dealing with mentally scarred people was originally part of her duties. He didn't see a point in trying to defend his wholeness of mind to her; he knew full well that he was broken in pieces from everything that had happened to him.  At some point, the job, with Dean at his side throughout it all, had become all he knew.

Dean didn't look so calm, but Dean hated it when he lost any vestige of control. Sam didn't much care for it either, but he had learned to put up with it until things were more in line with what he wanted.

"You were not prudent, to remove them from my sight without notifying me," Castiel said, standing in order to look down at Athena. Sam couldn't help but realize with some amusement that Castiel was nearly a full head shorter than the disguised--- _goddess._

Sam had met deities before. Several of them, from several different pantheons. For some reason, a great many of them had reminded him of small, spoiled brats who whined when they didn't get a toy. Somehow, with her stoic serenity, Athena was more impressive than all the others he had encountered before.

Of course, it also helped that she was easily the tallest person he had ever seen, aside from who he saw in the mirror every day. But that was probably a digression.

“If I did everything according to your patterns, angel of God, then there would be precious little I _could_ do,” Athena countered, looking faintly amused.  As if to reinforce the difference between her and Castiel, she stood up and looked down at him. Castiel, being Castiel, didn't back down, but simply stared up at her in what Sam could only assume was bemusement. Dean was the one with the ability to read Cas, not Sam.

“It was, nonetheless, unwise. Should their enemies find them in this room without any means of defense--”

“They would have _me_ to deal with, Angel Castiel,” Athena interrupted, her expression showing an unexpected ferocity. Sam suddenly had a strange image of her face being shielded by an antique helmet, much like the ones on the statues of ancient Greek warriors. It was a strangely poignant image. “I am not to be trifled with. You, despite all the resources at your command, could not find this place. The demon lord Crowley cannot enter this place. Anyone who harbors ill intent toward any who dwell within this space cannot enter.”

“We saw the sigil-work,” Dean said shortly. Sam, despite the tension, had to suppress a grin. Dean was clearly trying not to sound impressed.

“There is a great deal mortal eyes cannot perceive, Dean,” she replied, her eyes looking somewhere Sam couldn't see. “What you see is the surface, which is secure enough, but my studies over the eons have allowed me to develop additional safeguards. It is also one of the reasons why I have traditionally taken a less active role in the affairs of Earth and men.”

Sam saw the truth of her words, even though he didn't want to. It was only fairly recently that they had had a run-in with some of her less savory (and far less polite) relations, and it had not exactly ended in what Sam considered a happy manner. Gods and goddesses that followed a path of knowledge, by and large, didn’t usually require Sam and Dean having to kill them in order to protect others, though there had been exceptions. Just because Sam personally couldn't remember any exceptions didn't mean there hadn't _been_ any.

When he had started hunting in earnest, it had been easy to argue with Dean about killing the non-humans that genuinely wanted to live among humans in peace versus not doing so. The more time he spent hunting, though, the harder it was to see the merit in sparing the ones that didn't seem to be doing any harm.

Like Dympna.

“I am convinced that my path of non-interference has been for the best,” Athena continued, and Sam realized he must have missed part of the conversation. “This world does not have a history of being kind to those who merit such treatment, and yet, it is important to safeguard those who dwell upon it.”

Sam knew he had missed something, but it didn't look like Dean had. 

“Then, if this damn Earth is so damn special, where the hell is God and why isn't He protecting it?!” Dean demanded. He was so angry Sam could actually, for the first time in his life, _see_ a vein throbbing in Dean's forehead. He shot to his feet, nearly going toe-to-toe with her, never mind the height difference, and his fists were clenched and ready to fly.

As thrown for a loop as Sam was (even though he privately agreed with Dean), Athena seemed even more taken aback. “God?” She asked incredulously. “What has God to do with any of this?”

Dean looked like he was on the verge of some kind of breakdown. “The world's gone to shit, demons and Leviathans and ghosts and murderers and sickos wandering around, and _you're_ asking _me_ what God has to do with this?” 

Dean was positively _livid,_ Sam noticed. His cheeks were red, there were sweat droplets on his temples, and if his fists were clenched any tighter, the bones would start splitting through his skin. Sam was worried that he'd do something stupid, like _attack_ her. Dean wasn't exactly a pushover, but Athena was bigger, weighed at least as much, and was a _fucking goddess who specialized in warcraft._ Sam didn't think anyone would have much luck against her, much less Dean.

“But He has always been here, Dean,” Athena said softly, understanding in her gaze. “He has never left.”

Suddenly, Sam had images of all the good people he had known in his life. Jessica, Bobby, Dad, Jo, Ellen, Ash, all of them paraded through his memory, smiling sadly as they left him behind, or screaming in agony as they died. He told himself that only a few of them had died slowly enough to feel it, but his imagination wasn't listening as he listened to their cries.

“How can you possibly say that?” Sam choked out, tears coming to his eyes. “Nearly everyone good we know is dead, and others are getting murdered possibly as we _speak,_ for food, sick fun--”

“And are there not people like you there to stop them?” Athena asked simply.

The question floored Sam, and he stayed silent. Dean stuttered, “well, yes, but--”

“That is where God _is,_ Dean,” Athena said quietly, putting a hand on Castiel's shoulder and gently pushing on it. Getting the message, he sat down. She then reached out to grip both of Dean's shoulders firmly, looking into his eyes. Sam stepped closer, hoping to be unobtrusive, but also wary of her trying to hurt his brother. Goddess or not, she would be in for a fight if that happened.

Dean, however, looked as though all the rage had drained out of him the moment she touched him, and he stood calmly under her hands. “God is in _you._ He has _always_ been in you.”

Dean looked at her, astonished, and Sam was sure that his own face had the same expression.

 _Now_ she was pushing the level of believability. God had been nowhere to be found when they needed Him. All the bad shit happening, and not just to them, seemed to indicate a severe lack of the Big Guy's presence. Now Sam and Dean were somehow supposed to believe this goddess when she said her purely monotheistic counterpart was _in them._

“How can God possibly be in us?!” Sam demanded.

“Not simply you,” she said, indicating Castiel, who sat where she had put him, looking faintly confused. Sam was suddenly struck with the thought that, unless someone told him explicitly to sit, Castiel always stood. “God is in Castiel as well.”

“I am not the Lord,” Castiel said gravely. Sam may not have been able to read Castiel as well as Dean could, but if _he_ could read the shame and guilt in Castiel's voice this easily, chances were it was obvious to everyone in the room. It occurred to Sam that he had never spoken with Castiel about his delusions of Godhood after he had absorbed the souls in Purgatory. Now he wondered if Athena had summoned him here to do so. The thought was alarming.

“Indeed not,” Athena said easily, and Sam let out a slow breath he didn't even know he was holding. Dean, of course, exhaled much louder. “None of us are God, but we all have God in us.”

“Sounds like some kind of logic puzzle,” Dean muttered.

Sam wasn't much of a judge, but Athena seemed to have forgotten she had her hands on Dean's shoulders until he spoke. She guided him back to the couch and pushed. When he sat back down on it, she once again wrapped an arm around him and ran fingers through his hair.

“It is not a logic puzzle, but fact.” Athena paused, then seemed to consider her words before speaking. “Have you not wondered how deities of my pantheon, as well as others, can possibly exist if there is, in fact, an overarching Lord, the creator and father of Castiel, above us all, and yet so many of the holy books you humans hold dear state there can only be _one_ God?”

Sam had never quite thought of it that way. Scratch that, it had never really occurred to him to think that way. He had grown up monotheistic, and even meeting members of other pantheons hadn't really done much to change his mind. What else _were_ gods, angels, and goddesses, like Athena, than immortals who could be killed?

Then, as what Athena said fully registered with Sam, he found himself suddenly having difficulty standing, so he moved backwards to collapse onto the couch. “Are you saying that--”

“--God created us minor deities to do His work,” Athena stated, looking first at Dean, at Castiel, then at Sam, who was struck with the solemnity in her eyes. “He infused Himself into every creation upon this planet, according to a design in which we all play a part.”

“God can be evil?” Dean asked.

“And good, and all the permutations therewithin,” Athena agreed. “We all act as we are due to free will, but we all shine with the light we were blessed with at our births.”

“You appear to be saying,” Castiel said slowly, “that the Lord cannot be categorized, because He is in all the categories.” There was faint surprise in his voice. 

Sam was surprised too, but mostly because Castiel had spoken after such a long silence.

“It is not a concept most truly understand.” Athena patted Dean's shoulder, stood, and faced Castiel from between the couches. “Not unlike what most religious fanatics of this day and age believe, God truly is everywhere, if not in the way one would normally suspect.”

Dean looked faintly sick. “If you're lying about this--”

“Indeed not!” Athena looked offended, but Dean kept talking as if she hadn't spoken.

“--then you're saying that all the shit in the world _isn't_ because of God telling us all to fuck off and die?”

“If I understand your vulgar syntax correctly, no,” Athena said with a slight frown. “There is simply no one being that can encompass God, so if you seek an entity to fault, fault those who would not utilize their abilities for good. Placing the blame upon God for failing to take more direct action is avoiding a share in the responsibility.”

Sam thought about it, and somehow, despite his inherent skepticism, what Athena said actually made a sort of sense. Assuming she was correct, it was even oddly comforting, and it gave him back the feeling of being in control of his life. Too much of it had been orchestrated by someone else, or several someones, for him to ever feel entirely comfortable with the concepts of destiny or free will.

While he thought, Dean had also stood up, once again driving home the sheer difference in height between him and Athena. Dean's face was similarly thoughtful and troubled. Something had just occurred to him that he didn't seem to like, and Sam hoped he'd share. Or at least, Sam hoped he'd share once he sorted out his _own_ thoughts.

Neither Sam nor Dean had had easy lives, particularly in regards to hunting, and Sam's return to it had been anything but gentle. Losing the women he considered the love of his life to the same bastard who had killed his mother had not been anywhere near what Sam would consider fun, but it _had_ motivated him enough to go back to hunting long enough to get addicted once again. Once he had started, it had seeped into his bones and stained him so deeply that no amount of showering, losing himself in a woman's body, or drinking could get it out of him. 

It wasn't that he _had_ to kill things to feel normal, but he needed to feel like he was contributing somehow, giving back to a society he couldn't ever return to because of what he did. Most of all, he wanted to make sure that no children would have to go through what he did, ever again. Sometimes, he had succeeded. Other times, he had failed.

Sam still thought of the Antichrist child every day and wondered if he was well. He had seen himself when he looked into his eyes. He saw that look in his nightmares. The Antichrist's foundation had been ripped from him cruelly, and it didn't help that, from the very second of his awakening to his own power, everyone around him, good or evil, wanted to either kill him or recruit him for a disgusting cause. Sam still remembered when he had manifested visions and telekinesis. The look Dean had given him when Dean had caught him using his powers was something he still saw when he slept.

Everyone who had had the power the yellow-eyed bastard had fed them at birth had been isolated somehow. With the exception of Sam, all of them had somehow gone to the dark side or died (and Sam, with a shudder at the memory, _had_ died, so maybe he wasn’t quite so special as he’d thought). 

The one commonality was their isolation from others, even those who loved them. It had given Sam a lot of sleepless nights that had had nothing at all to do with nightmares of his lover burning to death, and everything to do with him being afraid of Dean getting fed up and abandoning him. It was a fairly large part of the reason why he had been afraid of starting the talk with Dean they should have had when Dean had broken into his apartment ten years ago.

Sam had never been able to think that God hated him or helped cause all the shit that had happened to him over the years. God hadn't given him the shakes in his hands he sometimes got when he loaded or cleaned his gun that he did his best to keep Dean from noticing. God didn't make him sleep fully armed and ready to wake up on a hair trigger at the first hint of unfamiliar sound. God hadn't taken the woman he had loved from him. Dean might have been ready to spit nails and holy water and curse a higher power for all the fuck-ups in their lives, but Sam just couldn't do the same when so much of what had happened to him was simply due to one demon thinking that giving an infant blood to drink and killing his mother was a good idea.

In light of what Athena had said, suddenly talking with Dean was the least terrifying of his concerns.

“So why us?” Sam asked, unable to keep it in. “What makes our lives so special to people that they're willing to send an actual deity to straighten us out?”

Athena had spent time lavishing Dean with what Sam privately thought was a lot of attention. Even more disturbing to him was how Dean was totally lapping it up even while he was spitting and snarling in what Sam considered his normal manner. Considering the prior evidence, Sam felt very confused when Athena patted Dean's shoulder, came over, sat next to him, and wrapped an arm around him in the same way she had been holding Dean. 

What surprised Sam even more was how oddly right it felt.

He wasn't sure if he particularly liked the way her fingers kept snagging on his hair, but he tried not to take the fact that he wasn't combing it enough personally.

“In all honesty, Sam,” Athena said, startling him a bit, “I have not seen such a gathering of irritated spirits since someone decided it would be a good idea to raid the Elysian Fields.”

“Seriously?” Dean barked, sounding shocked. Athena didn't react a bit, but kept combing her fingers through Sam's hair. Sam belatedly noticed that his hair was gradually being smoothed as she went.

“Indeed,” Athena stated. “Possibly some of the most brilliant military strategists I had seen in an age, and they wasted it by going down to Tartarus right after Persephone went back to Olympus. Hades was not amused.” She paused and scowled a bit. “Nor was I, after losing that many potential generals.”

“You were saying?” Sam prompted, trying to ignore Athena's irony. From the corner of his eye, Sam noticed Castiel lean forward, an intent expression on his face.

“I was saying that these spirits raised such a commotion such as the world has not seen in eons,” she declared. “Quite unnecessary. There was already interest in you from more corporeal factions, and I, among others, stood ready to intercede.”

It took Sam a moment to be able to digest the “corporeal” part of the factions that were supposedly interested in him and Dean, but by then, Dean was already talking.

“More people want to interfere in our lives?” Sam felt like something was cracking in him while he watched Dean's face contort. Dean was supposed to be the stoic one. He took whatever was dealt to him and didn't show how it cut him up, and here he was now, showing everything on his face.

The hand carding through his hair stopped moving and tightened on the back of his neck, not enough to hurt, but enough to haul him backwards. Sam realized that he had started to move toward Dean, and Athena had stopped him.

“Not to interfere, but to improve,” Athena replied. “There were those who had passed that had direct or indirect influences in your lives. These petitioners came to me, and to others similarly sympathetic to you, to beg my aid in restoring your balances.”

“Were they the only ones?” Sam asked, wondering why his voice sounded so hoarse. He didn't think it was because of Athena gripping the nape of his neck. She really wasn't holding it that hard.

“Before I answer that question, young Sam, I would first have to address what you inquired about earlier, about your lives being special.” She paused and took a deep breath, then, for some reason, looked straight at Castiel. He looked at her with what appeared to be his usual impassive expression, but Sam saw that his eyes, usually so strikingly bright, were narrowed and almost angry-looking.

Sam suddenly wondered if what Athena was about to say involved Cas.

Athena shook her head very slightly, and Sam might not have noticed it except for how close he was to her at that second. Whatever that head-shake was, Castiel relaxed after he presumably saw it.

“Part of your uniqueness is that your entire family, both Campbells and Winchesters, are fully capable of being the vessels of archangels,” Athena began, starting to massage the back of Sam's neck. He tried not to collapse into a pile of goo, but dammit, it felt good. “Once someone up in Castiel's flock decided that the Winchester line and the Campbell line should unite, the difficulties began.”

Difficulties. Yes. Sam figured that was one word for it.

“That inspired others to take notice of your families, who previously had enjoyed less chaotic lives,” she continued. “However, as you are well aware, not all of the archangels actually reside in Heaven, and the demon you know as Yellow-Eyes decided to find other families whose children could also house such power, in an attempt to find the appropriate vessel for the fallen Lightbringer.”

Sam swallowed hard at that. His Hell memories alternated between crystal clarity and horrifying fuzziness, and both caused nightmares, but nothing at all stood between him and the experience of being Lucifer's vessel. The power, the screams, the blood and the sensation of flesh striking flesh, all while being trapped within his own body, had woken him up in a cold sweat for more nights than he ever wanted to remember.

The soothing pressure against the back of his neck tightened, as if to ground him, and he cast the goddess a grateful look and tried to keep himself from hyperventilating.

“Brother against brother is simply the poetic reason that you were guided in the direction you were,” she concluded. “Had Azazel not assaulted your mother, your lives would doubtless be very different, as you are certainly aware.”

“I saw it,” Dean said, his voice oddly hesitant. “Back when that djinn got me.”

“Perhaps similar,” Athena acknowledged. “But, even as you were guided toward what would have been your ultimate confrontation, others took notice of your abilities and decided that interfering and attempting to twist you to their own purposes would be a fitting pursuit.”

Sam didn't quite know how to process that.

“In conclusion, one action created the storm that became their lives,” Castiel said tonelessly, which made Sam look at him curiously. Castiel's voice, usually a rumbling growl, sounded almost apologetic. “That is something I have spent much time attempting to atone for, that my brothers and sisters saw fit to interfere and ruin the Winchesters.”

“You yourself shall atone, Angel of the Lord,” Athena said, “but little of your fault lies with these brothers. Free will itself has allowed for you to make your own decisions, and so you have, but remember also, Castiel, that your brothers and sisters have it as well.”

Castiel looked startled. Well, Castiel had an eyebrow raised, but Sam figured that, on Cas, it was basically like someone jumping up and down while waving their arms.

“My actual purpose is simply to allow you and your brother, Samuel, to once again reach the level of trust and communication that you had before,” Athena said gently, using her free hand to smooth some hair out of Sam's eye. “That reason is what had the myriad of beings asking for my aid. You are famous in many areas, you realize.”

“Us?” Sam and Dean said at the same time, both sounding fairly incredulous. Sam looked at Dean, who looked just as weirded out as Sam felt.

“You,” Athena confirmed with a smile and a final pat to Sam's neck. She walked around the couches and Castiel's chair with her arms folded across her torso. “Not since Alexander and Hephaestion have two such warriors as you existed. Able to communicate with a glance and a gesture, and sometimes less. Neither of you possess skill greater than that of the generals of my days, but you are to be praised for being able to do as much as you have, while not having any significant advantages over those you call enemies.”

Sam frowned and looked at Dean, who appeared confused. Finally, Dean asked, “was that a compliment or an insult?”

Athena chuckled, a surprisingly soft and pleasant sound. Sam hadn't expected she knew _how_ to laugh. “Rest assured, it was a compliment.”

“Then they want us to, what exactly?” Sam asked, trying not to fidget. He figured Athena was aware of the connotations behind her statement regarding the legendary duo, but he didn't want to be the one to clue Dean in.

Athena must have seen what he was hiding, and she gave that low, amused laugh again. “Not like _that,_ Sam.”

“Oh,” Sam said, and blew out a breath. “Okay. Good, then.” 

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Dean demanded.

“I believe they are referring to the implication that Alexander and Hephaestion were more than brothers in battle,” Castiel replied before Sam could hush him.

Sam winced and watched Dean's face. It took a moment to sink in, and then Dean abruptly looked like he wanted to hurl. “ _Gross._ ”

“The potential sexual relationship between those two worthies is not what is under discussion here,” Athena interjected smoothly, and if Sam didn't know better, he would have sworn that she was fighting a smile. Come to think of it, he _didn't_ know better. “It is more the bond those two shared. The wordless communication and trust. Though you have it, lately it has not been in evidence, and that is endangering your lives.”

“They're ours to endanger,” Dean snapped, and Sam wondered at the tone of Dean's voice. It almost sounded guilty.

“But not yours to take,” Athena countered, her voice getting heated. “You are not just putting _yourselves_ at risk with your behavior. You put those whose lives you would save in danger as well, simply because you two are unable to interact on the level you were before, and believe me when I say that nothing less will allow you to continue your journey.”

Sam opened and closed his mouth, trying to think of something to say, and came up absolutely blank. He couldn't respond because Athena was right. She was _right,_ and nothing he could say to her would make her any less correct.

This was the heart of the problem between him and Dean. Too many things had happened to them and because of them to ever entirely be able to trust each other again. Sam had literally been thinking about that the entire time they were hunting what turned out to be Dympna. There had been Ruby, and Benny, and Amelia, and Lisa, and Cassie, and Jess, and Madison; an endless march of people, misunderstandings and situations the other person would never understand, because after each person inevitably left them or died, neither of them wanted to discuss what had happened.

Sam wanted to blame that on Dean, because Dean never opened his mouth if he thought something chick-flicky was going to come out of it, but Sam was just as guilty of it. It hurt too damn much to even think about them, much less bring them up and try to clear the air.

“So, now what?' Sam finally asked, when the silence got to him. Dean hadn't said a word for the same amount of time, and Castiel might as well have been a statue for all the movement that he had done while Sam was thinking.

“Now,” Athena said, sitting down in her own chair and spreading her arms in a gesture of supplication, “we talk.”


	9. Present Perfect

**Chapter Eight: Present Perfect**

_“I can't see where you're comin' from,  
But I know just what you're runnin' from.  
And what matters ain't the who's baddest but the  
Ones who stop you falling from your ladder...”_  
The Heavy, “Short Change Hero”

 

Dean wasn't sure how to feel about what was essentially a supernatural intervention. No, scratch that; he knew _exactly_ how to feel about it. 

Pissed.

Problems just _weren't_ solved by talking. So few of what he and Sam hunted had the brainpower to stop and listen to them that just standing around flapping gums would have been assisted suicide. Dean had died a few times in his day, but it didn't mean he wanted to go out like _that._ He'd rather go in his bed surrounded by naked women while listening to Kansas.

Or something less specific than that. But the bed full of naked women was at least a good place to start.

He knew he was blustering. It didn't make him any less angry about being drawn somewhere, kidnapped, then forced to talk about his _feelings,_ of all things. He knew that there was something off between him and Sam, and while he definitely didn't agree with how this whole situation came about, it was at least a start to something that had a chance of _not_ ending in a shouting match.

Dean figured that having a third party around to start this whole thing off would be a better plan that just taking a deep breath and going for it. Being spontaneous with the whole talking thing only ended in pain anyway. It was shit like that that had finalized Sam's decision to run away to Stanford all those years ago.

“I make no pretense of believing that one day in a room and beginning this discourse will entirely fix your difficulty.” Athena looked rueful at this admission. “However, for your good and for the good of all you hold close, I will hope that allowing you to air your grievances, even in so small a part, will begin the solution.”

“I still can't even believe that dead people want us to talk,” Dean admitted. He didn't feel like trying to be rude to her anymore. Being in Athena's presence was somehow soothing him into fighting down his usual gruffness. For some reason, that was probably the most fucked-up thing about being stuck in this room.

“The majority of your problems lie with your mutual inability to discuss such matters with each other,” Athena said gently. “Tell me truly; were you ever going to voluntarily disclose the thoughts in your head?”

Dean answered her the only way he knew how; by gritting his teeth and glaring at her. It might have had more effect had she been even a little smaller than she was.

“At least you knew what you wished to do, your personal inhibitions aside,” Athena mused. “That is more wisdom than I had expected.”

“Inhibitions?” Sam asked with a curious look. He leaned forward, and Dean wondered why he looked so intent.

“This modern generation is very much about repression,” Athena explained, crossing one foot behind the other. Dean belatedly noticed that her toenails were painted silver. “Being stoic is all well and good, but what many forget is that the demons within are as dangerous as the ones on the other end of your weaponry.”

Dean shuddered, and he saw Sam do it out of the corner of his eye. Dean suddenly wondered what Sam had felt like when he was possessed, and opened his mouth to ask. However, just as fast, he closed it.

Athena tsked, and the sound somehow echoed off the walls. “Ask him, Dean.”

“Ask me what?” Sam asked.

Dean took a deep breath and faced Sam. “I, uh, well, Sammy....” 

He trailed off and coughed. Reached over, grabbed a water bottle and drank some, wishing that it was hair of the dog instead of its cure. Took a deep breath. “I never asked you about what being possessed was like.”

Sam's face abruptly lost all expression, but his eyes darkened so much Dean almost couldn't find the pupils. That change startled Dean into moving toward Sam before he even knew he was going to do it, but a green-sleeved arm barred his way, and he froze in position, still trying to reach Sam. Athena gave him a warning glance before she gripped Sam's shoulder, as if to brace him.

Sam started hyperventilating, then just as suddenly, he calmed down and looked straight at Dean. His eyes were still nearly all pupil, and none of Sam's constantly changing colors were visible, but he didn't seem to still be in the grip of what Dean figured was a flashback. Dean watched Sam's throat work as he swallowed, then Sam's mouth opened. “It was almost as bad as being in the cage,” he whispered hoarsely.

Dean felt like an idiot. How could this talking thing make them better? It had just _hurt_ Sam to tell him about it. This couldn't possibly work---

“You did well, Samuel,” Athena praised him, rubbing the shoulder she had been gripping. Sam gave a wan smile then, the first bit of normalcy Dean had seen since asking that stupid, _stupid_ question.

“No one's ever asked me that before,” Sam said. Dean didn't like how hoarse and weak Sam's voice sounded, but underneath that, it almost sounded like Sam was _happy_ someone had finally asked about it. That was weird, though; why would dredging up a horribly memory like that make Sam feel better about things?

“It...I feel lighter,” Sam mused, some wonder creeping into his voice. To Dean's horror, some tears were visible in Sam's eyes, and he prayed to whatever power there might have been that Sam would _not_ start crying. He couldn't handle it. It was worse than being with a chick who was sobbing.

A large hand came into view and grabbed the arm Dean still had outstretched. “Thank you,” Sam whispered. “Thank you.”

“Why the hell are you thanking me for hurting you?” Dean demanded, shocked. “You just cracked up right in front of my face--”

“But I couldn't do it before,” Sam interjected. “Didn't know you'd want to know.”

“What?!” Dean had thought he was pissed before, but now, now he was mad. “Why the fuck _wouldn't_ I want to know? It's _you_ , Sam!”

Dean abruptly snapped his mouth shut and glared about the room, silently daring someone to say something. Castiel was his usual stone-faced self, Athena looked pleased, and Sam, well, Sam looked oddly happy and somehow confused at the same time. Dean would have to figure out how he managed that later.

“Well begun, Dean,” Athena said, with the air of a proud parent. “That was your first step back toward wisdom and regaining trust.”

“There's too much gone by between us to ever return to the relationship we had before,” Dean pointed out, trying not to flinch and blush as he spoke. He tried to look as if it wasn't a big deal to say things like this, but it felt like throwing up knives to admit out loud what he had thought for years.

“That may be so, but there are many things about your lives you could not have understood until they occurred,” Athena replied, her voice distant. “You speak of trust and betrayal, yet that was never the difficulty between you and your brother. You talk much of the duties that you have done and will do, yet many remain undone. However, you knew well enough that to attempt some of what you have considered in the privacy of your mind would be folly.” She paused. “That, at least, is wisdom. However, you could only have learned it at the source.”

“What does that mean?” Sam asked, sounding stronger. If Dean's earlier admission about his not being able to trust Sam in the way he had when they were kids had affected him, Dean couldn't see it.

“You, Samuel, and you, Dean, are compatible in your differences.” Athena gestured between them. “Your disjointed pieces mesh into a seamless web of teamwork and bravery. Despite this, you also had to learn that, as closely as you fit together, there are still imperfections that cannot, and should not, match together.” 

She took a deep breath, and Dean had the sudden feeling that she was about to say something he wouldn't like.

“That is why, early in your lives, I and others took it upon ourselves to guide Sam into realizing that he must spend time away from you to discover this, in the 'normal' life you have so often decried.”

Dean sometimes hated it when he was right.

“You're saying that Sammy here wouldn't ever have left me if it hadn't been for _you?_ ” Dean said, outraged.

Athena, damn her, didn't even have the decency to look sorry. “He never left you in his heart.”

Dean winced at the mushiness in that statement, anger gone as suddenly as it had appeared, and wondered how someone else saying that could make it sound ridiculous, but with Athena, it was just matter-of-fact.

“He simply knew, as he does now, that while you are indeed stronger when together, there was knowledge about himself he needed to gain while away from you. Even as you needed to discover the same while away from Sam.” 

Athena stood up again and walked to where Castiel sat, still looking intent on the conversation. She brushed a hand against his cheek and laid it on one shoulder, and Cas took that calm, electric blue stare off of Dean and looked up at her with it.

Dean never had been able to face that gaze for long before dropping his eyes. Athena was definitely made of sterner stuff than he was.

Sighing, he stood and moved to sit next to Sam, leaning up against his other shoulder in case Athena came to sit down again. “Did you really have to leave me to do that, Sammy?” He murmured for Sam's ears alone, but Athena must have heard him.

“Even as you had to move away from the influence of your father to learn yourself, Dean,” she confirmed. “Would you have been able to meet and love those who came and went, many before their time, with someone else controlling your actions as your father did?”

Dean wasn't sure he cared for the way she talked about his dad, but he answered her with the only truth he knew. “He did it for our best interests.”

“That is so,” Athena agreed. “However, that is also how he prevented you from leaving.”

Athena left Castiel's side with a gentle pat to his shoulder, then unexpectedly moved to sit across from them on the couch Dean had abandoned. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, and Dean was suddenly struck with how Cas-like the position was.

“Though I am not a parent in body, those who were raised in my temples worshipping me were as my children.” Athena paused, and coughed quietly before she continued talking. “Through them, I know that it is a peculiar form of love that allows a child to blossom, yet prevents the parent from allowing the child to explore, even while the child is grown.” She looked up at Dean, and Dean was surprised at the amount of grief he saw in her eyes. “For a child, that is not advisable, and it was assuredly not healthy for you.”

“Did you influence our dad to go out on his own, too?” Sam spoke up, startling Dean a bit. Sam had been quiet for a while, and Dean hadn't expected him to talk again.

“Not John Winchester, no,” Athena frowned, and actually looked annoyed. Dean stored that look away in the back of his mind to examine later. It hadn't occurred to him that a deity _could_ get annoyed.

“He frustrated many pantheons due to his penchant for following the virtues we are tasked to embody, while remaining unbeholden to any particular one.” She shook her head, and that annoyed look was still very much on her face. Dean wondered what she would say if he told her it was oddly cute.

“He continued to do so by causing the beginning of the dissolution of your bond,” she added, and the warm thoughts Dean was having disappeared. “He caused Sam to doubt himself, and forced you, Dean, to choose, and choose constantly, in order to keep the peace. As a direct result, you stopped conferring with Sam about his decisions.” Athena patted her head as if to ensure that her braided crown was still in place, and Dean was thrown enough by the concept of a goddess having nervous energy that he didn't react to what she was saying. “Sam also stopped bringing his concerns to you,” she added.

“So you're saying that we never really lost trust in each other,” Dean said slowly, dragging out the statement because he was thinking furiously. “That Dad basically helped us think we lost it?”

“Sounds more like we started thinking the wrong things for what looked like the right reasons.” Sam looked uncomfortable with the realization. “God knows I'd never hesitate to ask you for help, Dean, especially now.”

“Then why didn't you tell me about Stanford, Sammy?”

Dean hated the way Sam was looking at him right now. Sam was braced like he was expecting someone to punch him in the face, tearing up like someone had, and looking resigned all at once. Of all the expressions on Sam's face, this was the one Dean saw in the nightmares that had nothing to do with either Hell or Purgatory. As close together as they were sitting, Dean couldn't get away from it, and he would rather someone punched _him_ in the face than have to see it now.

Sam blew out a breath, but didn't look like he was going to have another panic attack. As far as blessings went, Dean was more than willing to take it.

“You weren't around for that last argument I had with Dad,” Sam said softly, looking between his feet. Dean wanted to wrench his head up and make Sam look at him, but he needed to hear this more than he needed to see Sam's face. “He...” Sam coughed and crossed his arms, gripping his biceps, like he was trying to somehow curl into a ball. “He basically confirmed everything I had thought.”

That, Dean understood.

A lot of the arguments Sam had had with Dad before he left for Stanford centered around the fact that Sam wasn't like Dean when it came to hunting. Sam didn't like shooting guns, didn't like getting up at the asscrack of dawn to train, and really didn't like the moving around and not keeping contact with people like Dad had demanded. Sam hadn't taken to hand-to-hand and weapons combat the way Dean had. Sam questioned everything Dad told them, even when Dean told him not to. It had resulted in a lot of late-night crying fests before Sam had hit puberty, with Sam's tiny body curling into itself the way Sam's adult body was trying to now, asking Dean through sobs why Dad didn't like him as much as he liked Dean.

Dean loved their father. He knew Sam did too, despite their differences. Now, though, hearing that soft admission, he was ready to kill their dad all over again.

Instead of saying that, since he knew it would only upset Sam more, he just asked; “that why you didn't want to talk to me before you went?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, his voice even quieter. “It took me two years to get over the fact that Dad loved you more than me.”

“He didn't,” Dean said, his voice just as low. “After you left, he kept asking me why I wasn't like _you_ , good at research and shit. You knew how he was when he was angry.”

“Not an excuse.” Sam sounded tired, and suddenly, Dean was too. Something had washed out of him with Sam's explanation, a tension he didn't know he'd been carrying until it lessened.

“No,” Dean agreed. “Not an excuse. But he definitely loved you.”

“I know that now.” Sam sighed and finally uncurled himself from that partial ball Dean hated. “But it hurt. It still does. And considering how close you and Dad were at the time, going to you just wasn't an option.”

Dean reached out and grabbed Sam then. He held Sam against his chest and curled around him, trying to keep everyone else out even though no one was going to attack. “You shouldn't have thought that, _ever.”_

Sam made that horrible noise that came before he started crying, then took a deep breath and fought it off. “I know.”

“There is something else you should know, concerning your father,” Athena murmured, somehow not breaking the weird spell of peace. “Time as you two experience it stopped for your father the moment your mother died. Nothing and no one could start it up for him again, and he could not move past it, no matter how much he tried.”

“ _Did_ he try?” Sam asked, faint bitterness in his voice.

The matter-of-fact tone Athena used to respond to that question shook Dean to the core. “More often than you will ever know.”

Dean bit his lip; apparently now it was _his_ turn to fight off the emasculating tears. He patted Sam's head and let him sit up. Sam didn't seem to get the message, but slung an arm across his shoulders and gripped hard. Dean couldn't bring himself to care. Now that the words were coming, he couldn't stop them and he didn't want to try.

“Dad went apeshit looking for you after you left,” Dean said, letting the memories surface. Ten years was enough distance to keep him from reacting like he had at the time. “I don't think he slept for three weeks after you went, and I know I didn't. Every time I put my head down, Dad would snap at me and we'd just keep going.”

The days had blurred after Sam had left. Lack of sleep and food hadn't let Dean remember a whole lot of what had actually happened, except that when Dad wasn't driving, snapping at Dean or calling people to get word on Sam, he was drinking insane amounts of whiskey and pouring it down Dean's throat too.

“If you hadn't sent that letter to our post office box letting us know you were okay, Dad might have killed us until we found you.” Dean cleared his throat and looked up at Athena, who sat still and quiet across from him. He heard Castiel move, a rare acknowledgement that his all-too-human body wasn't always comfortable with what he did with it, but didn't look over there. He was determined to say what he wanted, for once in his life.

“I didn't get at the time why you would abandon us, abandon _me,_ ” Dean corrected himself with a frown. “I thought it was because of something I had done. Because I sided with Dad a few times more than I did with you.”

He felt more than saw Sam shake his head, and nodded in return. Dean wasn't going to apologize for what he had thought at the time, both because he had thought it was the truth and due to the fact that it wouldn't change no matter what they did.

“Dammit,” he heard Sam mutter beside him. “We were dumbasses.”

That statement, for no apparent reason, made Dean start laughing. He bent over and wheezed, smiling so hard that his cheeks started hurting, and best of all, it made Sam start laughing too. When he regained control of himself to look up, he saw Athena smiling at him too, and it took his breath away and made him smile back at her. He felt light for the first time in years. Sam hadn't hated him. Sam hadn't blamed him for siding with Dad all the times he did. Granted, Sam had held the idea that Dad preferred Dean over him for all those years, but Dean hoped he had just proved that wrong.

For the first time in years, he _finally_ felt that they were on the same page. Even so, he didn't try and delude himself into thinking that, just by clearing the air with each other, it would magically fix all their problems. Sam had held that doubt close to his vest for nearly his entire life, and it'd probably take him a long time to come to terms with it. It didn't help that Dad hadn't exactly been good with the affection department. Dean considered _himself_ stoic, but Dad made him look like a cuddly teddy-bear in comparison.

“A lesson for you both,” Athena stated, sounding so proud it made Dean want to puff out his chest. It brought up the dimmed but cherished memories of his mom holding him close to her while Sam grew in her belly. “Misconceptions cause misunderstandings. Of course, being as young as you were, there would have been no real way to improve your communication, especially with your father interfering in his own way, and later events conspired to keep your interactions to an unfortunate minimum.”

“I'm still not sure we should thank you for kidnapping us,” Dean said, surprised at the teasing note in his voice. It had been a while since he had teased someone without any inherent meanness. He had forgotten what it sounded like.

“Thank me or not as you will,” Athena replied lightly. Her smile didn't expose her teeth anymore, but it still seemed joyous. “But remember, always, that while you can and should depend upon one another, that there are others who would gladly attempt to shoulder your burden. All you need do is ask.”

“You?” Sam asked hesitantly. Dean nodded his own agreement to Sam's question.

“I, and Castiel, and doubtless others of my pantheon who remain hidden lest other hunters decide we pose a threat.” Athena's smile broadened. “But, I beg, do not continue as you have. You need not suffer in silence as you have, believing the other does not care.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, then louder, “you're right.”

“Yes, she is,” Sam said. Dean smiled a little at the strength that was back in Sam's voice. Now that he heard it, he realized how off Sam had sounded before. There was always some hidden strain in there, as if he was going to crack at any second, and not in a funny way like the tone changes Dean had laughed at when they had both been teenagers. Now that it was gone, Dean wondered how long it had been there in the first place.

“I cannot keep you here much longer,” Athena said then, and Dean heard the sadness in her voice in the same way he'd heard strain in Sam's. “I am loathe to let you go back to the world. Having you here has been rather enjoyable, despite my initial misgivings.”

“It's been interesting,” Sam said diplomatically. Then, with a shy smile Dean hadn't seen since Sam was twelve, he added, “but I'm really happy this happened.”

Dean didn't trust himself to speak, but he nodded and hope he got his feelings across. Athena seemed to get it.

“I suppose we should not delay any further, then,” Athena said briskly, and Dean wondered if he was seeing the tears in her eyes. He hoped not. He barely knew what to do when a regular woman cried; what would he do for a goddess?

While he thought, she stood up, and Sam and Dean followed suit. Dean noticed Castiel standing as well. Maybe someone had finally taught him manners. God knew that Dad had beaten the rule that a man _stood_ when a lady did into their heads in between learning how to hunt.

She moved forward and grasped Sam by the biceps. Sam's hands moved a lot more hesitantly to grip her in the same area, and she leaned forward and ritually kissed Sam on the forehead, then both cheeks. Sam, blushing a shade of red Dean only saw on sunburn victims, did the same. She looked into his eyes for a long moment, then leaned toward him again to whisper something in his ear.

Dean _really_ wanted to hear what she told Sam, but Sam just nodded and released her arms. She released Sam's and moved toward Dean, to hold him in the same way. Dean looked up at her, wondered briefly if he would ever get used to that strange intimidation he felt standing near her, but took hold of her biceps anyway. He was far from being surprised about the feeling of firm muscle under her shirt, but what impressed him was how relaxed she was while allowing him this close inside her guard, where anyone with even a passing knowledge of martial arts could do serious harm.

Maybe that was the point?

She leaned down toward him, and Dean closed his eyes, knowing that he'd say something stupid if he watched. A soft pressure on his forehead, followed by the same on either cheek, let him know it was safe to look again. Her blue eyes stared into him, amusement crinkling the corners. Feeling embarrassed, he stood up on his tiptoes to kiss her where she had kissed him. Afterwards, she didn't let him move away, but leaned in the same way she had with Sam, and murmured, “keep yourself open to him, and all will be well.”

He nodded to her, and held her arms tighter in appreciation. He whispered back, “thank you.” Strange as the whole thing was, he really _was_ grateful.

Athena let go of his arms, then looked to Castiel. “Would you take them back?”

“It would be my honor,” Castiel replied gravely. He moved toward them, and nodded toward Athena. She graciously inclined her head in return, and patted first Dean, then Sam on the shoulders again before stepping back.

“Well met,” Athena said, which was the last thing Dean heard before Castiel touched two fingers to his forehead.

Their hotel room looked as bad as Dean had expected.

The clothes Dean vaguely remembered wearing before they woke up in that room were on his bed in a crumpled heap, which answered at least _one_ question about what he was wearing. After having met and spoken with one of the few deities who Dean actually _liked,_ the last thing he wanted was for her to have seen him naked.

The one thing that might have been worse would have been if she had somehow made him undress and put on pajamas.

Bottles of half empty and drained booze were everywhere. There were one or two tequila bottles on Dean's bed, a whole mess of beer bottles on Sam's, and the table was littered with them, a few even sitting on top of the laptop. Dean was at least thankful that none of them had spilled over while they were gone. Spilled booze smelled really bad after a while.

Speaking of time, he wondered how long they had been there, and looked toward the clock. His eyes bugged out. “It's only been a few hours?”

“Within that room, time passes as slowly or as quickly as Athena desires,” Castiel said in his usual monotone. He cocked his head curiously and examined first Dean, then Sam. Dean couldn't figure out why. It wasn't Castiel's usual look of confusion. It was more like he was looking for something than anything else.

“I was one of those who petitioned for you to be put into that room,” Castiel stated. At times, Dean really hated the way Cas would just say something that was clearly meant to be in the middle of a conversation, not the start. It made keeping up with him really tough. Since Dean wasn't quite sure what that statement was supposed to mean, he didn't say anything.

Sam, stepping up next to him, apparently didn't get the message. “Were you?” He asked, and to Dean's relief, he didn't sound angry.

“What you two were doing to each other was not ideal.” Castiel seemed to hesitate over his words more than he normally did, as if he was picking them out with care for once in his time with them. “I would not have been the correct candidate to help you as Athena did.”

Dean, with a sidelong glance at Sam, noticed that Sam didn't seem to have any better of an idea of what to say than Dean did.

“I am, however, pleased by what occurred in that room,” Castiel concluded. “In addition to such, speaking with Dympna was oddly refreshing.”

“Cas, did you know about Dympna before we got put in that room?” Dean demanded. From what Cas had said earlier, it was pretty obvious that he had had something to do with it.

“I did not,” Castiel replied solemnly. “I only knew that appropriate...bait...would be used.”

“Well, she was definitely that,” Sam said with a sigh. “She really gave off all the signs.”

“A conscious choice on her part, I believe,” Castiel said. “But as such, I must ensure her return to Heaven.”

A flap of the trenchcoat and the ghostly suggestion of flapping wings, along with the Castiel-shaped hole where he had been standing, announced his departure.

Sam huffed out a laugh and started picking bottles off the table and shoving them into a plastic bag. Dean silently helped him by taking the bottles that still had alcohol in them and dumping them out in the bathroom sink. After that epic hangover, Dean didn't even want to _think_ about drinking for at least the next few months.

Or weeks. He didn't know who he was trying to fool.

Neither of them talked, which was an odd contrast to how it had been in the room with Athena. Dean couldn't remember when he had talked so long or so openly to Sam, except for arguments over the years. Even considering the silence, it didn't feel as awkward as it once had. They had gotten rid of some of the pain they had endured over the years. Tired as he was, Dean couldn't really remember the last time he had felt so content.

“Hey, Sammy?” He called softly, not wanting to disturb the peace.

“Yeah?” Sam called back just as quietly.

“What did Athena say to you before Cas brought us back?”

Dean heard more clinking as Sam continued bagging bottles, and instead of getting impatient and demanding an answer, Dean kept emptying his. Awesome as the selection had been, he was _not_ putting half-empty bottles of booze in his baby, where they could spill.

“She told me to stop trying to keep you out of my issues,” Sam said finally, when a loud clank announced that the bag was full and on the ground. “That doing that helped add to the problems we've been having.” Sam was quiet for a second, and then footsteps announced his arrival in the bathroom doorway. “What did she tell you?”

Dean didn't hesitate. “She told me to stay open to you, and we'd be fine.”

Sam made a hesitant sound of agreement, but didn't actually say anything. Dean was fine with that.

They worked for a little while longer to clear the mess their night of frustration had caused, but when it was done, Dean didn't feel any closer to an epiphany than he had when they'd started. Talking somehow made things easier between them, but it was _hard_ for him to do that. He had always been more about proving his intentions with his actions rather than his words. Their dad had encouraged that, but now that Dean was older, he didn't feel like that was the right way to go anymore. The way things had been going with Sam _proved_ that it was a bad long-term plan.

Talking terrified him. It meant he couldn't take things back. The damage words had done to Sam and Dean, and their brotherhood and relationship over the years, was nothing short of horrible. They had gotten along so well before Sam had left for Stanford, and now that Dean knew why Sam had gone, he could have happily kicked the ass of his twenty-something self.

He sighed to himself. He didn't want to be that stuck-in-his-ways old hunter who couldn't figure out how to try new things. Those hunters usually were the ones who died due to stupid mistakes and lack of research. Dean didn't exactly _feel_ young anymore, but he didn't think he was as old as some of those old dogs. He'd be damned if he couldn't learn some new tricks before he checked out for good.

And if some of those new tricks helped him get his brother back, _really_ back, then he'd do anything. Sam was all he had left in the world, and he didn't want to go through life with Sam's body at his side, but his mind elsewhere, because, Dean realized, that was what had been going on before the interlude in the room. He nodded to himself. When it came down to talking to Sam and having his brother with him, or keeping everything inside and hurting them both, it wasn't a choice at all.

“Hey, Sammy?” Dean stuck his head out of the bathroom. “The sun'll be up soon. What do you want for breakfast?”

Sam had been sitting on the bed against the headboard, and he tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Dunno, Dean,” he said. “My stomach's still a bit off. What were you thinking?”

Dean grinned, and felt lighter than he had in years. “Something new, Sam. You choose.” 

He paused, and rethought that statement. “As long as it isn't fish. It makes you a biohazard.”

**Author's Note:**

> Gratitude must go to the fabulous starling_night for her amazing artwork, which is liberally sprinkled throughout the story! Thanks also to wendy and thehighwaywoman for running the Supernatural-J2 Big Bang every year, and to paleogymnast and the members of omgspnbigbang for their support for this newbie!


End file.
